heardvsHeraWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#35,826
“heard” frequency rank
#35,231
“Hera” frequency rank
71057
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heard Hera
Definition Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs hear höchste der olympischen Götter, Schwester und Gattin des Zeus

Where the eye mixes heard and Hera

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
heard
4 ch
Hera

Visual trap between heard and Hera

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: heard is [hɜːd] while Hera is [ˈheːʁa]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71057, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heard is recorded at frequency rank #35,826, classified as averb, pronounced [hɜːd]. Hera is at rank #35,231, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈheːʁa].

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 71057, this pair ranks #428,026 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of heard vs Hera

Shared letters: aehr. Private to "heard": d. Private to "Hera": -.

"heard" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "Hera" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heardehard · haerd · headr · heardd · hearrd · herad · hheard
  • Heraehra · herra · hhera · hrea

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "heard" and "Hera" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "heard" is a verb and "Hera" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "heard" or "Hera" show up more?
"Hera" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,231 in our German list, against #35,826 for "heard". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "heard" and "Hera" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "heard" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Hera" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #428,026 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heard" and "Hera" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hardi vs heard". 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 #428,026 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