palmvspollWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“palm” and “poll” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#18,649
“palm” frequency rank
#38,341
“poll” frequency rank
56990
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature palm poll
Definition innere Fläche der Hand, zwischen Handwurzel und Fingern; Mittelhand, Handfläche die Laus

Where the eye mixes palm and poll

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
palm
4 ch
poll

Visual trap between palm and poll

A purely visual mix-up. palm ([pɑːm]) and poll ([poʎ]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56990, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

palm is recorded at frequency rank #18,649, classified as anoun, pronounced [pɑːm]. poll is at rank #38,341, tagged as anoun, pronounced [poʎ].

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 56990, this pair ranks #918,837 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of palm vs poll

Shared letters: lp. Private to "palm": am. Private to "poll": o.

"palm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "poll" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • palmaplm · pallm · palmm · paml · plam · ppalm
  • pollopll · plol · ppoll

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "palm" for "poll" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([pɑːm] versus [poʎ]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "palm" vs "poll" - which ranks higher?
"palm" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,649 in our German list, against #38,341 for "poll". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "palm" and "poll" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "palm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poll" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #918,837 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "palm" and "poll" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "PoC vs poll". 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 #918,837 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