haovsherWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: hao is a noun, her is a determiner, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hao” is a noun and “her” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,588
“hao” frequency rank
#58
“her” frequency rank
31646
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hao her
Definition A former currency unit of Vietnam, worth one tenth of a dong. Belonging to her (belonging to that female person or animal, or in poetic or old-fashioned language that ship, city, season, etc).

Letter map: hao vs her

Shared letters muted; letters that set hao and her apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
hao
3 ch
her

Role in the sentence - hao and her

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hao is anoun and heradeterminer. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31646, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hao is recorded at frequency rank #31,588, classified as anoun. her is at rank #58, tagged as adet, pronounced /ˈhɜː/.

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 31646, this pair ranks #344,405 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hao vs her

Shared letters: h. Private to "hao": ao. Private to "her": er.

"hao" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "her" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hao" for "her" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hao" is a noun and "her" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hao" or "her"?
"her" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #58 in our English list, against #31,588 for "hao". 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 "hao" and "her". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hao" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "her" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #344,405 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hao" and "her" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hao vs HRW". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #344,405 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