harmvsHerzWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#46,723
“harm” frequency rank
#794
“Herz” frequency rank
47517
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature harm Herz
Definition körperlicher oder geistiger Schaden das Zentralorgan für den Blutkreislauf

Letter map: harm vs Herz

Shared letters muted; letters that set harm and Herz apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
harm
4 ch
Herz

Pair insight - harm / Herz

harm and Herz 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 47517, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

harm is recorded at frequency rank #46,723, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. Herz is at rank #794, tagged as anoun, pronounced [hɛʁt͡s].

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 47517, this pair ranks #1,281,510 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of harm vs Herz

Shared letters: hr. Private to "harm": am. Private to "Herz": ez.

"harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "Herz" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • harmahrm · hamr · harmm · harrm · hharm · hram
  • Herzehrz · herrz · herzz · hezr · hherz · hrez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "harm" for "Herz" ever safe?
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 "Herz" - which ranks higher?
"Herz" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #794 in our German list, against #46,723 for "harm". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "harm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Herz" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,281,510 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "harm" and "Herz" 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 #1,281,510 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