Which to use
“harm” is a noun and “hor” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,169
- “harm” frequency rank
- #45,433
- “hor” frequency rank
- 48602
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | harm | hor |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Physical injury; hurt; damage. | her |
Where the eye mixes harm and hor
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses harm with hor
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: harm is /hɑːm/ while hor is /høː/. 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 (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48602, 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/. hor is at rank #45,433, tagged as apron, pronounced /høː/.
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 48602, this pair ranks #191,507 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of harm vs hor
Shared letters: hr. Private to "harm": am. Private to "hor": o.
"harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hor" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- harm ← ahrm · hamr · harmm · harrm · hharm · hram
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "harm" for "hor" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "harm" or "hor" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "harm" and "hor" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "harm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hor" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #191,507 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "harm" and "hor" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hoke vs hor". 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 #191,507 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.