hap
/hæp/
"hap" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hap” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #27,486) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #27,486
- frequency rank, English
- 23,837
- “H” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A person's lot (good or bad), luck, fortune, fate.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hap · hap · English
hap · rank #27,486 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #27,486
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 23,837
- PHOTO-FINISH Hampstead
Nearest frequency peer: Hampstead (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “hap”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Hackett
Hackett
72,518 corpus weight
- hajj
hajj
72,517 corpus weight
- Hampstead
Hampstead
72,516 corpus weight
- hap
hap
72,515 corpus weight
- Hatfield
Hatfield
72,514 corpus weight
- HDD
HDD
72,513 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “hap” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hap |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /hæp/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #27,486 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hap” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for hap is neighbouring look-alikes ("he", "hi", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /hæp/. Frequency #27,486 among 23,837 “H” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for hap, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "he", "hi", "HD", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English hap, happe (“chance, hap, luck, fortune”), potentially cognate with or from Old English ġehæp (“fit, convenient”) and/or Old Norse happ (“hap, chance, good luck”), from Proto-Germanic *hampą (“convenience, happiness”), from Proto-Indo-Eu… The correct English form is hap, spelled H-A-P.
Definition
- 1A person's lot (good or bad), luck, fortune, fate.
- 2A stroke of good or bad luck, an occurrence or happening, especially an unexpected, random, chance, or fortuitous event.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how hap appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Cursed be good haps, and cursed be they that build / Their hopes on haps, and do not make despair / For all these certain blows the surest shield.
And whether art it were, or heedless hap, / As through the flowring forest rash she fled, / In her rude hairs sweet flowres themselves did lap / And flourishing fresh leaves and blossoms did enwrap.
Etymology
From Middle English hap, happe (“chance, hap, luck, fortune”), potentially cognate with or from Old English ġehæp (“fit, convenient”) and/or Old Norse happ (“hap, chance, good luck”), from Proto-Germanic *hampą (“convenience, happiness”), from Proto-Indo-European *kob- (“good fortune, prophecy; to bend, bow, fit in, work, succeed”). Cognate with Icelandic happ (“hap, chance, good luck”). Related also to Icelandic heppinn (“lucky, fortunate, happy”), Old Danish hap (“fortunate”), Swedish hampa (“to turn out”), Old Church Slavonic кобь (kobĭ, “fate”), Old Irish cob (“victory”). The verb is from Middle English happen, perhaps from Old English hæppan (“to move accidentally, slip”) and/or from Old Norse *happa, *heppa, from Proto-Germanic *hampijaną (“to fit in, be fitting”), from the noun. Cognate with Old Danish happe (“to chance, happen”), Norwegian heppa (“to occur, happen”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "hap", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.