HackvshartConfusable pair

Quick tell: Hack is a noun, hart is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Hack” is a noun and “hart” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,667
“Hack” frequency rank
#1,111
“hart” frequency rank
12778
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hack hart
Definition Hackfleisch nur mit großem Kraftaufwand verformbar

Where the eye mixes Hack and hart

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Hack
4 ch
hart

Visual trap between Hack and hart

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Hack is [hak] while hart is [haʁt]. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12778, 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]. hart is at rank #1,111, tagged as anadj, pronounced [haʁt].

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 12778, this pair ranks #1,962,096 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Hack vs hart

Shared letters: ah. Private to "Hack": ck. Private to "hart": rt.

"Hack" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hart" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hackahck · hacck · hackk · hakc · hcak · hhack
  • hartahrt · harrt · hartt · hatr · hhart · hrat

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Hack" and "hart" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Hack" is a noun and "hart" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Hack" or "hart" show up more?
"hart" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,111 in our German list, against #11,667 for "Hack". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hack" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hart" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,962,096 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hack" and "hart" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hack vs haze". 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 #1,962,096 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