hawksvsplantsWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#33,631
“hawks” frequency rank
#49,962
“plants” frequency rank
83593
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hawks plants
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs hawk Plural des Substantivs plant

Letter map: hawks vs plants

Shared letters muted; letters that set hawks and plants apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. hawks runs 5 letters (CVCCC) against plants's 6 (CCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
hawks
6 ch
plants

Role in the sentence - hawks and plants

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hawks is averb and plantsanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83593, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hawks is recorded at frequency rank #33,631, classified as averb, pronounced […]. plants is at rank #49,962, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 83593, this pair ranks #137,320 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hawks vs plants

Shared letters: as. Private to "hawks": hkw. Private to "plants": lnpt.

"hawks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "plants" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hawks ← ahwks · hakws · hawkks · hawkss · hawsk · hawwks · hhawks · hwaks
  • plants ← lpants · palnts · plannts · plantss · plantts · platns · pllants · plnats

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hawks" for "plants" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hawks" is a verb and "plants" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "hawks" or "plants" show up more?
"hawks" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,631 in our German list, against #49,962 for "plants". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "hawks" vs "plants" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hawks" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #137,320 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hawks" and "plants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plants 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 #137,320 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