Half or halve?
half is a noun meaning “One of two usually roughly equal parts into which anything may be divided, or…”; halve is a verb meaning “To reduce to half the original amount”. Use half as a noun and halve as a verb. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) half is about 646 times as common as halve.
What is the difference between half and halve?
| half | halve | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, adjective, adverb, verb, preposition, interjection, prefix | verb |
| Meaning | One of two usually roughly equal parts into which anything may be divided, or considered as divided One of two equal periods into which a game is divided Consisting of a half (½, 50%) | To reduce to half the original amount To divide into two halves |
| Example | I ate the smaller half of the apple | none recorded |
| Forms | halves | halves, halving, halved |
| Pronunciation | /ˈhɑːf/ /ˈhaːf/ /ˈhäːf/ | /hɑːv/ /hæv/ /hɛəv/ |
| In writing | 257 times per million words | about once in every 3 million words |
Sources: half and halve in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of half and halve
half
- 1
One of two usually roughly equal parts into which anything may be divided, or considered as divided
I ate the smaller half of the apple
- 2
Consisting of a half (½, 50%)
a half kilo
- 3
In two equal parts or to an equal degree
- 4
To halve
- 5
IrelandUKHalf past; a half-hour (30 minutes) after the last hour
The time is 9:30; it is half nine
- 6
A call reminding performers that the performance will begin in thirty minutes
- 7
half or partial; not complete
- 8
One of two equal periods into which a game is divided
An association football match usually consists of two halves of 45 minutes each
halve
- 1
To reduce to half the original amount
- 2
To divide into two halves
- 3
To make up half of
- 4
To join two pieces of timber etc. by cutting away each for half its thickness at the joining place, and fitting together
- 5
In match play, to achieve a tie or draw on
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, half or halve?
half appears 257 times per million words; halve about once in every 3 million words.
half 257 times per million wordshalve about once in every 3 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search half vs halve?
“half vs halve” is searched about 720 times a month on Google and 30 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“halve vs half”, “half or halve”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.