hairedvshareWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: haired is a adjective, hare is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“haired” is an adjective and “hare” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,225
“haired” frequency rank
#11,895
“hare” frequency rank
23120
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature haired hare
Definition Bearing one's own hair as grown and yet attached; neither bald nor hairless. Any of several plant-eating mammals of the genus Lepus, similar to a rabbit, but larger and with longer ears.

Where the eye mixes haired and hare

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
haired
4 ch
hare

Visual trap between haired and hare

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: haired is /hɛəd/ while hare is /hɛə/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23120, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

haired is recorded at frequency rank #11,225, classified as anadj, pronounced /hɛəd/. hare is at rank #11,895, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɛə/.

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 23120, this pair ranks #411,612 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of haired vs hare

Shared letters: aehr. Private to "haired": di. Private to "hare": -.

"haired" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "hare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hairedahired · haierd · hairde · hairedd · hairred · haried · hhaired · hiared
  • hareahre · harre · hhare · hrae

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "haired" and "hare" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "haired" is an adjective and "hare" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "haired" or "hare"?
"haired" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,225 in our English list, against #11,895 for "hare". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "haired" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hare" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #411,612 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "haired" and "hare" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hare vs hoke". 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 #411,612 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list