Which to use
“hard” is an adjective and “he'd” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #273
- “hard” frequency rank
- #2,627
- “he'd” frequency rank
- 2900
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hard | he'd |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Solid and firm. | Contraction of he + had. |
Where the eye mixes hard and he'd
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hard is /hɑːd/ while he'd is /hiːd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs contraction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2900, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hard is recorded at frequency rank #273, classified as anadj, pronounced /hɑːd/. he'd is at rank #2,627, tagged as acontraction, pronounced /hiːd/.
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 2900, this pair ranks #523,706 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hard vs he'd
Shared letters: dh. Private to "hard": ar. Private to "he'd": e.
"hard" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "he'd" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- hard ← ahrd · hadr · hardd · harrd · hhard · hrad