HavenvshobenWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#25,587
“Haven” frequency rank
#31,101
“hoben” frequency rank
56688
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Haven hoben
Definition Hafen 1. Person Plural Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs heben

Letter map: Haven vs hoben

Shared letters muted; letters that set Haven and hoben apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Haven and hoben follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Haven
5 ch
hoben

Role in the sentence - Haven and hoben

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Haven is anoun and hobenaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56688, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Haven is recorded at frequency rank #25,587, classified as anoun. hoben is at rank #31,101, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈhoːbn̩].

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 56688, this pair ranks #930,457 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Haven vs hoben

Shared letters: ehn. Private to "Haven": av. Private to "hoben": bo.

"Haven" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "hoben" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Haven ← ahven · haevn · havenn · havne · havven · hhaven · hvaen
  • hoben ← hboen · hhoben · hobben · hobenn · hobne · hoebn · ohben

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Haven" for "hoben" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Haven" is a noun and "hoben" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Haven" or "hoben" show up more?
"Haven" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,587 in our German list, against #31,101 for "hoben". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "Haven" and "hoben". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Haven" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hoben" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #930,457 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Haven" and "hoben" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Haven vs haze". 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 #930,457 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