Which to use
“harm” is a noun and “heard” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #46,723
- “harm” frequency rank
- #35,826
- “heard” frequency rank
- 82549
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | harm | heard |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | körperlicher oder geistiger Schaden | Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs hear |
Letter map: harm vs heard
Shared letters muted; letters that set harm and heard apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. harm runs 4 letters (CVCC) against heard's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Role in the sentence - harm and heard
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: harm is anoun and heardaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82549, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
harm is recorded at frequency rank #46,723, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. heard is at rank #35,826, tagged as averb, pronounced [hɜːd].
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 82549, this pair ranks #155,244 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of harm vs heard
Shared letters: ahr. Private to "harm": m. Private to "heard": de.
"harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "heard" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "harm" for "heard" ever safe?
In ordinary German text, does "harm" or "heard" show up more?
What to do next
You've compared "harm" and "heard". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "harm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "heard" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #155,244 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "harm" and "heard" 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 #155,244 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.