PauvsshameWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#49,946
“Pau” frequency rank
#43,491
“shame” frequency rank
93437
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pau shame
Definition Stadt in Südfrankreich jemanden beschämen

Letter map: Pau vs shame

Shared letters muted; letters that set Pau and shame apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. Pau runs 3 letters (CVV) against shame's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
Pau
5 ch
shame

Grammar separator: Pau vs shame

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Pau is aname and shameaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 93437, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pau is recorded at frequency rank #49,946, classified as aname, 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 93437, this pair ranks #22,829 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Pau vs shame

Shared letters: a. Private to "Pau": pu. Private to "shame": ehms.

"Pau" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "shame" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • shame ← hsame · sahme · shaem · shamme · shhame · shmae · sshame

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Pau" and "shame" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Pau" is a name and "shame" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Pau" or "shame" show up more?
"shame" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #43,491 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pau" 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 #22,829 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pau" and "shame" 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 #22,829 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