Which to use
“safe” is an adjective and “shame” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #6,848
- “safe” frequency rank
- #43,491
- “shame” frequency rank
- 50339
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | safe | shame |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | vor Gefahren geschützt | jemanden beschämen |
Letter map: safe vs shame
Shared letters muted; letters that set safe and shame apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.
Part-of-speech tell for safe / shame
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: safe is anadjective and shameaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50339, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
safe is recorded at frequency rank #6,848, classified as anadj, pronounced [sɛɪ̯f]. 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 50339, this pair ranks #1,177,499 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of safe vs shame
Shared letters: aes. Private to "safe": f. Private to "shame": hm.
"safe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "shame" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "safe" for "shame" ever safe?
Which is more common, "safe" or "shame"?
Useful next steps
You've compared "safe" and "shame". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "safe" 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 #1,177,499 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "safe" and "shame" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs shame". 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 #1,177,499 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.