SakevsshameConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#47,710
“Sake” frequency rank
#43,491
“shame” frequency rank
91201
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Sake shame
Definition japanisches alkoholisches Getränk, das aus mit Hefe vergorenem Reis hergestellt wird und heiß getrunken wird jemanden beschämen

Letter map: Sake vs shame

Shared letters muted; letters that set Sake and shame apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Sake runs 4 letters (CVCV) against shame's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
Sake
5 ch
shame

Part-of-speech tell for Sake / shame

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Sake is anoun and shameaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 91201, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Sake is recorded at frequency rank #47,710, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈzaːkə]. 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 91201, this pair ranks #39,971 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Sake vs shame

Shared letters: aes. Private to "Sake": k. Private to "shame": hm.

"Sake" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "shame" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Sake ← aske · saek · sakke · skae · ssake
  • shame ← hsame · sahme · shaem · shamme · shhame · shmae · sshame

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Sake" and "shame" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Sake" is a noun and "shame" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Sake" or "shame"?
"shame" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #43,491 in our German list, against #47,710 for "Sake". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "Sake" and "shame". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Sake" 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 #39,971 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Sake" and "shame" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sake vs Sire". 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 #39,971 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