paidvspalmConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#44,122
“paid” frequency rank
#18,649
“palm” frequency rank
62771
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paid palm
Definition Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs pay innere Fläche der Hand, zwischen Handwurzel und Fingern; Mittelhand, Handfläche

Letter map: paid vs palm

Shared letters muted; letters that set paid and palm apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. paid (CVVC) and palm (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
paid
4 ch
palm

Part-of-speech tell for paid / palm

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: paid is averb and palmanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62771, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paid is recorded at frequency rank #44,122, classified as averb, pronounced […]. palm is at rank #18,649, tagged as anoun, pronounced [pɑːm].

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 62771, this pair ranks #700,879 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of paid vs palm

Shared letters: ap. Private to "paid": di. Private to "palm": lm.

"paid" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "palm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paid ← apid · padi · paidd · ppaid
  • palm ← aplm · pallm · palmm · paml · plam · ppalm

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "paid" for "palm" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "paid" is a verb and "palm" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "paid" or "palm" show up more?
"palm" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,649 in our German list, against #44,122 for "paid". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "paid" vs "palm" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "paid" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "palm" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #700,879 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paid" and "palm" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paid 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 #700,879 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