Which to use
“harm” is a noun and “hav” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,169
- “harm” frequency rank
- #34,516
- “hav” frequency rank
- 37685
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | harm | hav |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Physical injury; hurt; damage. | Informal spelling of have. |
Letter map: harm vs hav
Shared letters muted; letters that set harm and hav apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for harm / hav
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: harm is anoun and havaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37685, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
harm is recorded at frequency rank #3,169, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɑːm/. hav is at rank #34,516, tagged as averb.
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 37685, this pair ranks #292,434 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of harm vs hav
Shared letters: ah. Private to "harm": mr. Private to "hav": v.
"harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hav" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- harm ← ahrm · hamr · harmm · harrm · hharm · hram
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "harm" for "hav" ever safe?
Which is more common, "harm" or "hav"?
After this comparison
You've compared "harm" and "hav". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "harm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hav" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #292,434 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "harm" and "hav" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hav vs HRW". 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 #292,434 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.