Which to use
“hare” and “haye” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,895
- “hare” frequency rank
- #44,832
- “haye” frequency rank
- 56727
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hare | haye |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Any of several plant-eating mammals of the genus Lepus, similar to a rabbit, but larger and with longer ears. | A shark (scaleless cartilaginous fish). |
Where the eye mixes hare and haye
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses hare with haye
A purely visual mix-up. hare (/hɛə/) and haye (/heɪ/) 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 a single letter - r in “hare” becomes y in “haye”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56727, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hare is recorded at frequency rank #11,895, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɛə/. haye is at rank #44,832, tagged as anoun, pronounced /heɪ/.
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 56727, this pair ranks #124,152 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of hare vs haye
Shared letters: aeh. Private to "hare": r. Private to "haye": y.
"hare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "haye" · 4 letters · shape CVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "hare" for "haye" ever safe?
Frequency check: "hare" vs "haye" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "hare" and "haye" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "hare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "haye" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #124,152 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hare" and "haye" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "haye vs hoke". 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 #124,152 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.