harmvshatsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#46,723
“harm” frequency rank
#9,734
“hats” frequency rank
56457
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature harm hats
Definition körperlicher oder geistiger Schaden Plural des Substantivs hat

Letter map: harm vs hats

Shared letters muted; letters that set harm and hats apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. harm and hats follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
harm
4 ch
hats

Corpus notes: harm and hats

harm and hats are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56457, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

harm is recorded at frequency rank #46,723, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. hats is at rank #9,734, tagged as anoun, pronounced [hæts].

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 56457, this pair ranks #939,451 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of harm vs hats

Shared letters: ah. Private to "harm": mr. Private to "hats": st.

"harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hats" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • harm ← ahrm · hamr · harmm · harrm · hharm · hram
  • hats ← ahts · hatss · hatts · hhats · htas

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "harm" and "hats" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "harm" vs "hats" - which ranks higher?
"hats" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,734 in our German list, against #46,723 for "harm". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "harm" and "hats".

  • Full dictionary entry for "harm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hats" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #939,451 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "harm" and "hats" 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 #939,451 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