handvsharWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#375
“hand” frequency rank
#22,396
“har” frequency rank
22771
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hand har
Definition The part of the forelimb below the forearm or wrist in a human, and the corresponding part in many other animals. A hinge.

Where the eye mixes hand and har

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hand
3 ch
har

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. hand (/ˈhænd/) and har (/hɑː/) 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 22771, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hand is recorded at frequency rank #375, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhænd/. har is at rank #22,396, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɑː/.

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 22771, this pair ranks #414,136 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hand vs har

Shared letters: ah. Private to "hand": dn. Private to "har": r.

"hand" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "har" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • handahnd · hadn · handd · hannd · hhand · hnad

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hand" and "har" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈhænd/ versus /hɑː/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "hand" or "har"?
"hand" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #375 in our English list, against #22,396 for "har". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "hand" and "har". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hand" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "har" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #414,136 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hand" and "har" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "har vs Hoare". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list