PauvssamplesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#49,946
“Pau” frequency rank
#42,107
“samples” frequency rank
92053
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pau samples
Definition Stadt in Südfrankreich Plural des Substantivs sample

Letter map: Pau vs samples

Shared letters muted; letters that set Pau and samples apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
Pau
7 ch
samples

Part-of-speech tell for Pau / samples

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Pau is aname and samplesanoun. On the page they differ by 4 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 92053, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pau is recorded at frequency rank #49,946, classified as aname, pronounced […]. samples is at rank #42,107, 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 92053, this pair ranks #32,825 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Pau vs samples

Shared letters: ap. Private to "Pau": u. Private to "samples": elms.

"Pau" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "samples" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • samplesasmples · samlpes · sammples · sampels · sampless · samplles · samplse · sampples

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Pau" and "samples" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Pau" is a name and "samples" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Pau" or "samples" show up more?
"samples" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42,107 in our German list, against #49,946 for "Pau". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "Pau" vs "samples" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "samples" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,825 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pau" and "samples" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pau 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 #32,825 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