HackvsharmWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#11,667
“Hack” frequency rank
#46,723
“harm” frequency rank
58390
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hack harm
Definition Hackfleisch körperlicher oder geistiger Schaden

Letter map: Hack vs harm

Shared letters muted; letters that set Hack and harm apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. Hack and harm follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
Hack
4 ch
harm

Spelling & dictionary notes on Hack vs harm

Hack and harm 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58390, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hack is recorded at frequency rank #11,667, classified as anoun, pronounced [hak]. 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 58390, this pair ranks #864,628 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Hack vs harm

Shared letters: ah. Private to "Hack": ck. Private to "harm": mr.

"Hack" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hack ← ahck · hacck · hackk · hakc · hcak · hhack
  • harm ← ahrm · hamr · harmm · harrm · hharm · hram

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Hack" for "harm" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "Hack" or "harm"?
"Hack" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,667 in our German list, against #46,723 for "harm". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "Hack" and "harm". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hack" 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 #864,628 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hack" 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 #864,628 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