English homophones
ha/hah/har
"ha" is a verb; "hah" is an intj - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "ha" arrives as a verb, while "hah" is an intj. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "ha" then splits - "ha" (2 letters) vs "hah" (3).
- Shared stem "ha" then splits - "ha" (2 letters) vs "har" (3).
- Single-letter fork: "hah" keeps h, "har" writes r at letter 3.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across ha, hah, har: ah. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
ha
2 letters · 1 vowels · shape CV
Inventory ah · no private letters vs siblings
hah
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory ah · no private letters vs siblings
har
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory ahr · private r
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "ha" when you mean: Alternative form of a (“have”).
- Write "hah" when you mean: Alternative form of ha.
- Write "har" when you mean: A hinge.
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 3-spelling cluster (ha, hah, har). Here's where to go from here.
- "ha" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #2,580 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 3 spellings ranks #30 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 3-spelling cluster: horse · hoarse · hoss. Nearby cluster
- Grammar often disambiguates this cluster, match the meaning to the part of speech before picking a spelling. Pick by meaning
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.