harevshärtenWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#40,584
“hare” frequency rank
#47,493
“härten” frequency rank
88077
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hare härten
Definition der Hase transitiv:

Letter map: hare vs härten

Shared letters muted; letters that set hare and härten apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. hare runs 4 letters (CVCV) against härten's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
hare
6 ch
härten

Role in the sentence - hare and härten

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hare is anoun and härtenaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88077, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hare is recorded at frequency rank #40,584, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. härten is at rank #47,493, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈhɛʁtn̩].

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 88077, this pair ranks #72,618 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hare vs härten

Shared letters: ehr. Private to "hare": a. Private to "härten": ntä.

"hare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "härten" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hare ← ahre · harre · hhare · hrae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hare" and "härten" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hare" is a noun and "härten" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "hare" vs "härten" - which ranks higher?
"hare" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,584 in our German list, against #47,493 for "härten". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "hare" vs "härten" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "härten" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,618 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hare" and "härten" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "harren vs härten". 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 #72,618 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