HaarevshatteWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#2,028
“Haare” frequency rank
#91
“hatte” frequency rank
2119
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Haare hatte
Definition Variante für den Dativ Singular des Substantivs Haar 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs haben

Where the eye mixes Haare and hatte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Haare
5 ch
hatte

Look-alike desk: Haare vs hatte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Haare is [ˈhaːʁə] while hatte is [ˈhatə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2119, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Haare is recorded at frequency rank #2,028, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈhaːʁə]. hatte is at rank #91, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈhatə].

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 2119, this pair ranks #2,003,068 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Haare vs hatte

Shared letters: aeh. Private to "Haare": r. Private to "hatte": t.

"Haare" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "hatte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Haareahare · haaer · haarre · harae · hhaare
  • hatteahtte · hate · hatet · hhatte · htate

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Haare" for "hatte" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Haare" is a noun and "hatte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Haare" vs "hatte" - which ranks higher?
"hatte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #91 in our German list, against #2,028 for "Haare". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "Haare" and "hatte" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Haare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hatte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #2,003,068 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Haare" and "hatte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Haare vs Hähne". 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 #2,003,068 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