PauvsullaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Pau is a name, ulla is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#49,946
“Pau” frequency rank
#24,155
“ulla” frequency rank
74101
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pau ulla
Definition Stadt in Südfrankreich Nominativ Singular Femininum des Indefinitpronomens ullus

Letter map: Pau vs ulla

Shared letters muted; letters that set Pau and ulla apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. Pau runs 3 letters (CVV) against ulla's 4 (VCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
Pau
4 ch
ulla

Role in the sentence - Pau and ulla

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Pau is aname and ullaanunknown. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74101, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pau is recorded at frequency rank #49,946, classified as aname, pronounced […]. ulla is at rank #24,155, tagged as anunknown, 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 74101, this pair ranks #342,366 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Pau vs ulla

Shared letters: au. Private to "Pau": p. Private to "ulla": l.

"Pau" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "ulla" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ulla ← lula · ula · ulal

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Pau" for "ulla" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Pau" is a name and "ulla" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Pau" or "ulla"?
"ulla" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,155 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.

Useful next steps

You've compared "Pau" and "ulla". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ulla" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #342,366 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pau" and "ulla" 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 #342,366 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