shamevsStämmeTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#43,491
“shame” frequency rank
#10,183
“Stämme” frequency rank
53674
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature shame Stämme
Definition jemanden beschämen Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Stamm

Letter map: shame vs Stämme

Shared letters muted; letters that set shame and Stämme apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. shame runs 5 letters (CCVCV) against Stämme's 6 (CCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
shame
6 ch
Stämme

Part-of-speech tell for shame / Stämme

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: shame is averb and Stämmeanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53674, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

shame is recorded at frequency rank #43,491, classified as averb, pronounced […]. Stämme is at rank #10,183, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈʃtɛmə].

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 53674, this pair ranks #1,048,830 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of shame vs Stämme

Shared letters: ems. Private to "shame": ah. Private to "Stämme": tä.

"shame" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "Stämme" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • shame ← hsame · sahme · shaem · shamme · shhame · shmae · sshame

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "shame" and "Stämme" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "shame" is a verb and "Stämme" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "shame" or "Stämme"?
"Stämme" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,183 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

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "shame" and "Stämme".

  • Full dictionary entry for "shame" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Stämme" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,048,830 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "shame" and "Stämme" 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 #1,048,830 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