halevshazeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#35,821
“hale” frequency rank
#49,774
“haze” frequency rank
85595
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hale haze
Definition Dativ Singular des Substantivs hala Atmosphäre, Wetter: sehr feine, weit verstreute feste oder flüssige Partikel in der Luft

Where the eye mixes hale and haze

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. hale and haze follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
hale
4 ch
haze

Look-alike desk: hale vs haze

A purely visual mix-up. hale ([ˈɦalɛ]) and haze ([heɪz]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - l in “hale” becomes z in “haze”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85595, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hale is recorded at frequency rank #35,821, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈɦalɛ]. haze is at rank #49,774, tagged as anoun, pronounced [heɪz].

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 85595, this pair ranks #106,001 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hale vs haze

Shared letters: aeh. Private to "hale": l. Private to "haze": z.

"hale" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "haze" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hale ← ahle · hael · hhale · hlae
  • haze ← ahze · haez · hazze · hhaze · hzae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hale" for "haze" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([ˈɦalɛ] versus [heɪz]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "hale" or "haze"?
"hale" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,821 in our German list, against #49,774 for "haze". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "hale" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "haze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #106,001 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hale" and "haze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hähne 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 #106,001 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