LahrvslamWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Lahr is a name, lam is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Lahr” is a name and “lam” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,085
“Lahr” frequency rank
#31,656
“lam” frequency rank
57741
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Lahr lam
Definition eine Stadt in Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland Genitiv Plural des Substantivs lama

Letter map: Lahr vs lam

Shared letters muted; letters that set Lahr and lam apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
Lahr
3 ch
lam

Part-of-speech tell for Lahr / lam

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Lahr is aname and lamanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57741, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Lahr is recorded at frequency rank #26,085, classified as aname, pronounced [laːɐ̯]. lam is at rank #31,656, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 57741, this pair ranks #889,545 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Lahr vs lam

Shared letters: al. Private to "Lahr": hr. Private to "lam": m.

"Lahr" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "lam" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Lahralhr · lahhr · lahrr · larh · lhar · llahr

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Lahr" for "lam" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Lahr" is a name and "lam" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Lahr" or "lam" show up more?
"Lahr" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,085 in our German list, against #31,656 for "lam". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "Lahr" vs "lam" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Lahr" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lam" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #889,545 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Lahr" and "lam" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lam vs puzzles". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #889,545 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list