ham
[ˈhɑmˀ]
The verdict
“ham” is a moderately-common German word, ranked #10,294 in German word frequency and used as a noun.
- #10,294
- frequency rank, German
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - äußerste Hautschicht bei Amphibien und Reptilien; Haut
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ham |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [ˈhɑmˀ] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #10,294 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ham” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for ham is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ˈhɑmˀ]. Corpus data places it at rank #10,294 in overall German word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "äußerste Hautschicht bei Amphibien und Reptilien; Haut".
ham has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "hi", "hm", "He", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct German form is ham, spelled H-A-M.
Definition
- 1äußerste Hautschicht bei Amphibien und Reptilien; Haut
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “ham”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is H-A-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ˈhɑmˀ] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “hi” - see the side-by-side comparison. ham vs hi
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.