habvsharmConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#126
“hab” frequency rank
#46,723
“harm” frequency rank
46849
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hab harm
Definition 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs haben körperlicher oder geistiger Schaden

Letter map: hab vs harm

Shared letters muted; letters that set hab and harm apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
hab
4 ch
harm

Grammar separator: hab vs harm

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hab is averb and harmanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46849, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hab is recorded at frequency rank #126, classified as averb, pronounced [haːp]. harm is at rank #46,723, 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 46849, this pair ranks #1,304,822 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hab vs harm

Shared letters: ah. Private to "hab": b. Private to "harm": mr.

"hab" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • harmahrm · hamr · harmm · harrm · hharm · hram

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hab" for "harm" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hab" is a verb and "harm" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "hab" vs "harm" - which ranks higher?
"hab" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #126 in our German list, against #46,723 for "harm". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "hab" and "harm".

  • Full dictionary entry for "hab" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "harm" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,304,822 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hab" and "harm" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "harm vs puzzles". 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 #1,304,822 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