Which to use
“half” and “harm” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #374
- “half” frequency rank
- #3,169
- “harm” frequency rank
- 3543
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | half | harm |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | One of two usually roughly equal parts into which anything may be divided, or considered as divided. | Physical injury; hurt; damage. |
Where the eye mixes half and harm
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. half (/hɑːf/) and harm (/hɑːm/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3543, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
half is recorded at frequency rank #374, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɑːf/. harm is at rank #3,169, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɑːm/.
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 3543, this pair ranks #521,790 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of half vs harm
Shared letters: ah. Private to "half": fl. Private to "harm": mr.
"half" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC