Which to use
“hair” is a noun and “hear” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #876
- “hair” frequency rank
- #588
- “hear” frequency rank
- 1464
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hair | hear |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A pigmented filament of keratin which grows from a follicle on the skin of humans and other mammals. | To perceive sounds through the ear. |
Where the eye mixes hair and hear
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hair is /hɛə/ while hear is /ˈhɪə/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1464, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hair is recorded at frequency rank #876, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɛə/. hear is at rank #588, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈhɪə/.
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 1464, this pair ranks #527,373 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hair vs hear
Shared letters: ahr. Private to "hair": i. Private to "hear": e.
"hair" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "hear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC