Which to use
“hard” is an adjective and “harm” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #8,386
- “hard” frequency rank
- #46,723
- “harm” frequency rank
- 55109
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hard | harm |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | hart, fest | körperlicher oder geistiger Schaden |
Letter map: hard vs harm
Shared letters muted; letters that set hard and harm apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. hard and harm follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Role in the sentence - hard and harm
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hard is anadjective and harmanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - d in “hard” becomes m in “harm”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55109, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hard is recorded at frequency rank #8,386, classified as anadj, pronounced [hɑː(ɹ)d]. 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 55109, this pair ranks #992,392 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of hard vs harm
Shared letters: ahr. Private to "hard": d. Private to "harm": m.
"hard" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "hard" and "harm" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "hard" vs "harm" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "hard" and "harm".
- Full dictionary entry for "hard" 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 #992,392 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hard" 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 #992,392 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.