hatevshatterTell them apart

Which to use

“hate” and “hatter” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#807
“hate” frequency rank
#37,963
“hatter” frequency rank
38770
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hate hatter
Definition An object of hatred. A person who makes, sells, or repairs hats.

Where the eye mixes hate and hatter

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hate
6 ch
hatter

Visual trap between hate and hatter

A purely visual mix-up. hate (/heʔ/) and hatter (/ˈhætə(ɹ)/) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38770, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hate is recorded at frequency rank #807, classified as anoun, pronounced /heʔ/. hatter is at rank #37,963, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈhætə(ɹ)/.

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 38770, this pair ranks #282,937 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hate vs hatter

Shared letters: aeht. Private to "hate": -. Private to "hatter": r.

"hate" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "hatter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hateahte · haet · hatte · hhate · htae
  • hatterahtter · hatetr · hatterr · hattre · hhatter · htater

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hate" for "hatter" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/heʔ/ versus /ˈhætə(ɹ)/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "hate" or "hatter"?
"hate" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #807 in our English list, against #37,963 for "hatter". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "hate" and "hatter" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hate" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hatter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #282,937 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hate" and "hatter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Haber vs hatter". 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 #282,937 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