teamsvstearsTell them apart

Which to use

“teams” and “tears” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#2,089
“teams” frequency rank
#32,803
“tears” frequency rank
34892
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature teams tears
Definition Plural des Substantivs team Plural des Substantivs tear

Letter map: teams vs tears

Shared letters muted; letters that set teams and tears apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. teams and tears follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
teams
5 ch
tears

Spelling & dictionary notes on teams vs tears

teams and tears are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by a single letter - m in “teams” becomes r in “tears”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34892, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

teams is recorded at frequency rank #2,089, classified as anoun, pronounced [tiːmz]. tears is at rank #32,803, tagged as anoun, 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 34892, this pair ranks #1,652,884 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of teams vs tears

Shared letters: aest. Private to "teams": m. Private to "tears": r.

"teams" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "tears" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • teamsetams · taems · teamms · teamss · teasm · temas · tteams
  • tearsetars · taers · tearrs · tearss · teasr · teras · ttears

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "teams" for "tears" ever safe?
No. They differ by a single letter - m in “teams” becomes r in “tears”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary German text, does "teams" or "tears" show up more?
"teams" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,089 in our German list, against #32,803 for "tears". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "teams" vs "tears" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "teams" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tears" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,652,884 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "teams" and "tears" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs tears". 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 #1,652,884 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