hetvshurtTell them apart

Quick tell: het is a determiner, hurt is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“het” is a determiner and “hurt” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,178
“het” frequency rank
#43,976
“hurt” frequency rank
60154
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature het hurt
Definition definiter (bestimmter) Artikel neutrum; das 2. Person Plural Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs huren

Where the eye mixes het and hurt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
het
4 ch
hurt

Look-alike desk: het vs hurt

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: het is [(h)ət] while hurt is [huːɐ̯t]. 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 (determiner vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60154, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

het is recorded at frequency rank #16,178, classified as adet, pronounced [(h)ət]. 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 60154, this pair ranks #797,484 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of het vs hurt

Shared letters: ht. Private to "het": e. Private to "hurt": ru.

"het" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hurt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hurthhurt · hrut · hurrt · hurtt · hutr · uhrt

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "het" and "hurt" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "het" is a determiner and "hurt" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "het" or "hurt" show up more?
"het" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,178 in our German list, against #43,976 for "hurt". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "het" 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 #797,484 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "het" and "hurt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hum vs hurt". 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 #797,484 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