harevshyeTell them apart

Quick tell: hare is a noun, hye is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hare” is a noun and “hye” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,895
“hare” frequency rank
#21,825
“hye” frequency rank
33720
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hare hye
Definition Any of several plant-eating mammals of the genus Lepus, similar to a rabbit, but larger and with longer ears. Obsolete spelling of high.

Letter map: hare vs hye

Shared letters muted; letters that set hare and hye apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
hare
3 ch
hye

Part-of-speech tell for hare / hye

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hare is anoun and hyeanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33720, 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/. hye is at rank #21,825, tagged as anadj.

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 33720, this pair ranks #326,965 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hare vs hye

Shared letters: eh. Private to "hare": ar. Private to "hye": y.

"hare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "hye" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hareahre · harre · hhare · hrae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hare" and "hye" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hare" is a noun and "hye" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "hare" vs "hye" - which ranks higher?
"hare" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,895 in our English list, against #21,825 for "hye". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "hare" vs "hye" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hye" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #326,965 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hare" and "hye" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hoke vs hye". 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 #326,965 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