Which to use
“had” is a verb and “HK” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #54
- “had” frequency rank
- #14,136
- “HK” frequency rank
- 14190
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | had | HK |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of have | Initialism of Hong Kong. |
Letter map: had vs HK
Shared letters muted; letters that set had and HK apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.
Part-of-speech tell for had / HK
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: had is averb and HKaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14190, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
had is recorded at frequency rank #54, classified as averb, pronounced /hæd/. HK is at rank #14,136, tagged as aname.
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 14190, this pair ranks #471,540 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of had vs HK
Shared letters: h. Private to "had": ad. Private to "HK": k.
"had" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "HK" · 2 letters · shape CC
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "had" for "HK" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "had" or "HK" show up more?
Useful next steps
You've compared "had" and "HK". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "had" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "HK" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #471,540 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "had" and "HK" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "HK vs hoke". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #471,540 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.