shamevsslaveWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#43,491
“shame” frequency rank
#27,060
“slave” frequency rank
70551
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature shame slave
Definition jemanden beschämen Mensch, der Eigentum eines anderen Menschen ist; Unfreier: Sklave, Sklavin

Letter map: shame vs slave

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

5 ch
shame
5 ch
slave

Part-of-speech tell for shame / slave

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: shame is averb and slaveanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70551, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

shame is recorded at frequency rank #43,491, classified as averb, pronounced […]. slave is at rank #27,060, tagged as anoun, pronounced [sleɪv].

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 70551, this pair ranks #442,908 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of shame vs slave

Shared letters: aes. Private to "shame": hm. Private to "slave": lv.

"shame" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "slave" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • shamehsame · sahme · shaem · shamme · shhame · shmae · sshame
  • slavelsave · slaev · slavve · sllave · slvae · sslave

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "shame" and "slave" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "shame" is a verb and "slave" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "shame" or "slave" show up more?
"slave" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,060 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.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "shame" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "slave" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #442,908 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "shame" and "slave" 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 #442,908 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