# ham vs hamza

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### ham
*noun · IPA /ˈhæm/ · frequency rank #5,885*
The region back of the knee joint; the popliteal space; the hock.

### hamza
*noun · frequency rank #33,267*
A sign used in the written Arabic language representing a glottal stop. Hamza may appear as a stand-alone letter (ء (ʔ)) or most commonly diacritically over or under other letters, e.g. أ (ʔ) (over an alif [ا]), إ (ʔ) (under an alif), ؤ (ʔ) (over a wāw [و]) or ئ (ʔ) (over a dotless yāʾ [ى]). The exact seat of hamza is governed by an orthographic rule – the "seat of hamza rule".

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ham-vs-hamza