shamevssheTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#43,491
“shame” frequency rank
#11,521
“she” frequency rank
55012
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature shame she
Definition jemanden beschämen sie

Letter map: shame vs she

Shared letters muted; letters that set shame and she apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
shame
3 ch
she

Part-of-speech tell for shame / she

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: shame is averb and sheapronoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55012, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

shame is recorded at frequency rank #43,491, classified as averb, pronounced […]. she is at rank #11,521, tagged as apron, pronounced [ʃiː].

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 55012, this pair ranks #996,155 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of shame vs she

Shared letters: ehs. Private to "shame": am. Private to "she": -.

"shame" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "she" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • shamehsame · sahme · shaem · shamme · shhame · shmae · sshame

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "shame" and "she" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "shame" is a verb and "she" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "shame" or "she" show up more?
"she" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,521 in our German list, against #43,491 for "shame". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "shame" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "she" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #996,155 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "shame" and "she" 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 #996,155 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