Which to use
“harm” is a noun and “hurt” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #46,723
- “harm” frequency rank
- #43,976
- “hurt” frequency rank
- 90699
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | harm | hurt |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | körperlicher oder geistiger Schaden | 2. Person Plural Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs huren |
Letter map: harm vs hurt
Shared letters muted; letters that set harm and hurt apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. harm and hurt follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Grammar separator: harm vs hurt
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: harm is anoun and hurtaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 90699, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
harm is recorded at frequency rank #46,723, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. hurt is at rank #43,976, tagged as averb, pronounced [huːɐ̯t].
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 90699, this pair ranks #44,545 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of harm vs hurt
Shared letters: hr. Private to "harm": am. Private to "hurt": tu.
"harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hurt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "harm" and "hurt" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary German text, does "harm" or "hurt" show up more?
After this comparison
Pair "harm" vs "hurt" 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 "hurt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #44,545 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "harm" and "hurt" 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 #44,545 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.