Which to use
“hard” is an adjective and “her” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #273
- “hard” frequency rank
- #58
- “her” frequency rank
- 331
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hard | her |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Solid and firm. | Belonging to her (belonging to that female person or animal, or in poetic or old-fashioned language that ship, city, season, etc). |
Where the eye mixes hard and her
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between hard and her
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hard is /hɑːd/ while her is /ˈhɜː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 331, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hard is recorded at frequency rank #273, classified as anadj, pronounced /hɑːd/. 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 331, this pair ranks #529,586 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hard vs her
Shared letters: hr. Private to "hard": ad. Private to "her": e.
"hard" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "her" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- hard ← ahrd · hadr · hardd · harrd · hhard · hrad
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "hard" and "her" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "hard" or "her"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "hard" and "her" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "hard" 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 #529,586 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hard" and "her" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hard 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
Confusion rank #529,586 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.