museumsvsshameTell them apart

Quick tell: museums is a noun, shame is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“museums” is a noun and “shame” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,506
“museums” frequency rank
#43,491
“shame” frequency rank
50997
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature museums shame
Definition Plural des Substantivs museum jemanden beschämen

Letter map: museums vs shame

Shared letters muted; letters that set museums and shame apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. museums runs 7 letters (CVCVVCC) against shame's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
museums
5 ch
shame

Role in the sentence - museums and shame

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: museums is anoun and shameaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50997, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

museums is recorded at frequency rank #7,506, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. shame is at rank #43,491, tagged as averb, 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 50997, this pair ranks #1,152,416 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of museums vs shame

Shared letters: ems. Private to "museums": u. Private to "shame": ah.

"museums" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCC  ·  "shame" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • museumsmmuseums · msueums · muesums · musemus · museumms · museumss · museusm · musseums
  • shamehsame · sahme · shaem · shamme · shhame · shmae · sshame

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "museums" and "shame" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "museums" is a noun and "shame" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "museums" or "shame"?
"museums" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,506 in our German list, against #43,491 for "shame". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "museums" and "shame".

  • Full dictionary entry for "museums" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "shame" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,152,416 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "museums" and "shame" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs shame". 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 #1,152,416 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