hairedvshatedTell them apart

Which to use

“haired” and “hated” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#11,225
“haired” frequency rank
#5,133
“hated” frequency rank
16358
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature haired hated
Definition Bearing one's own hair as grown and yet attached; neither bald nor hairless. Disliked; odious; reviled.

Where the eye mixes haired and hated

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

6 ch
haired
5 ch
hated

Look-alike desk: haired vs hated

A purely visual mix-up. haired (/hɛəd/) and hated (/ˈheɪtɪd/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16358, 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/. hated is at rank #5,133, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈheɪtɪd/.

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 16358, this pair ranks #458,252 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of haired vs hated

Shared letters: adeh. Private to "haired": ir. Private to "hated": t.

"haired" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "hated" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hairedahired · haierd · hairde · hairedd · hairred · haried · hhaired · hiared
  • hatedahted · haetd · hatde · hatedd · hatted · hhated · htaed

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "haired" and "hated" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/hɛəd/ versus /ˈheɪtɪd/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "haired" or "hated"?
"hated" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,133 in our English list, against #11,225 for "haired". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "haired" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hated" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #458,252 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "haired" and "hated" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Haber vs hated". 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 #458,252 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