kam
[kaːm]
The verdict
“kam” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #274) as a verb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #274
- frequency rank, German
- 4,158
- “K” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs kommen
Corpus desk
Index DE-kam · kam · German
kam · rank #274 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #274
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,158
- PHOTO-FINISH ihrem
Nearest frequency peer: ihrem (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “kam”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- E
E
99,730 corpus weight
- Frauen
Frauen
99,729 corpus weight
- ihrem
ihrem
99,728 corpus weight
- kam
kam
99,727 corpus weight
- 7
7
99,726 corpus weight
- allen
allen
99,725 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “kam” sits against the nearest ranked German headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | kam |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | [kaːm] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #274 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Wo “kam” in der deutschen Häufigkeit sitzt
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for kam is neighbouring look-alikes ("km", "kg", …), not just typos; it is averb pronounced [kaːm]. Frequency #274 among 4,158 “K” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
kam has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable German rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "km", "kg", "KW", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct German form is kam, spelled K-A-M.
Definition
- 11. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs kommen
- 23. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs kommen
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
How do you spell "kam"?
What does "kam" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "kam"?
How do you pronounce "kam"?
What language does "kam" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar German words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "kam", not the corpus desk frequency band.
What to do next
You've looked up "kam". Here's where to go from here.
- "kam" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "km". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #274 among German headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more German words in the "K" letter cohort. K–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.