HacksvshawksTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#34,711
“Hacks” frequency rank
#33,631
“hawks” frequency rank
68342
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hacks hawks
Definition Genitiv Singular des Substantivs Hack 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs hawk

Letter map: Hacks vs hawks

Shared letters muted; letters that set Hacks and hawks apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. Hacks and hawks follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Hacks
5 ch
hawks

Role in the sentence - Hacks and hawks

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Hacks is anoun and hawksaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - c in “Hacks” becomes w in “hawks”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68342, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hacks is recorded at frequency rank #34,711, classified as anoun, pronounced [haks]. hawks is at rank #33,631, tagged as averb, 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 68342, this pair ranks #510,872 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Hacks vs hawks

Shared letters: ahks. Private to "Hacks": c. Private to "hawks": w.

"Hacks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "hawks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hacks ← ahcks · haccks · hackks · hackss · hacsk · hakcs · hcaks · hhacks
  • hawks ← ahwks · hakws · hawkks · hawkss · hawsk · hawwks · hhawks · hwaks

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Hacks" and "hawks" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Hacks" is a noun and "hawks" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Hacks" or "hawks"?
"hawks" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,631 in our German list, against #34,711 for "Hacks". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "Hacks" and "hawks". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hacks" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hawks" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #510,872 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hacks" and "hawks" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hawks 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 #510,872 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