haresvshasConfusable pair

Quick tell: hares is a noun, has is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hares” is a noun and “has” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,482
“hares” frequency rank
#47
“has” frequency rank
37529
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hares has
Definition plural of hare third-person singular simple present indicative of have

Where the eye mixes hares and has

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
hares
3 ch
has

Visual trap between hares and has

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hares is /hɛɚz/ while has is /hæz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37529, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hares is recorded at frequency rank #37,482, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɛɚz/. has is at rank #47, tagged as averb, pronounced /hæz/.

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 37529, this pair ranks #293,785 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hares vs has

Shared letters: ahs. Private to "hares": er. Private to "has": -.

"hares" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "has" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • haresahres · haress · harres · harse · hhares · hraes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "hares" and "has" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hares" is a noun and "has" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "hares" or "has" show up more?
"has" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #47 in our English list, against #37,482 for "hares". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hares" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "has" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #293,785 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hares" and "has" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hares 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 #293,785 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