harmvshaveConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#46,723
“harm” frequency rank
#5,376
“have” frequency rank
52099
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature harm have
Definition körperlicher oder geistiger Schaden haben; besitzen; zur Verfügung haben

Letter map: harm vs have

Shared letters muted; letters that set harm and have apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. harm (CVCC) and have (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
harm
4 ch
have

Role in the sentence - harm and have

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: harm is anoun and haveaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52099, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

harm is recorded at frequency rank #46,723, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. have is at rank #5,376, tagged as averb, pronounced [hæv].

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 52099, this pair ranks #1,109,986 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of harm vs have

Shared letters: ah. Private to "harm": mr. Private to "have": ev.

"harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "have" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • harm ← ahrm · hamr · harmm · harrm · hharm · hram
  • have ← ahve · haev · havve · hhave · hvae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "harm" and "have" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "harm" is a noun and "have" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "harm" or "have" show up more?
"have" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,376 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.

Useful next steps

Pair "harm" vs "have" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "harm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "have" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,109,986 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "harm" and "have" 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 #1,109,986 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