harsh
/hɑɹʃ/
"harsh" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“harsh” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,687 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #5,687
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Unpleasantly rough to the touch or other senses.
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 | harsh |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /hɑɹʃ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #5,687 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “harsh” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for harsh is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /hɑɹʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,687 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for harsh, with forms such as "ahrsh", "harhs", and "harrsh". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "has", "hart", "hats", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English harsk, harisk(e), hask(e), herris. Century derived the term from Old Norse harskr (whence Danish harsk (“rancid”), dialectal Norwegian hersk, Swedish härsk); the Middle English Dictionary derives it from that and Middle Low German harsch… The correct English form is harsh, spelled H-A-R-S-H.
Definition
- 1Unpleasantly rough to the touch or other senses.
- 2Severe or cruel.
Etymology
From Middle English harsk, harisk(e), hask(e), herris. Century derived the term from Old Norse harskr (whence Danish harsk (“rancid”), dialectal Norwegian hersk, Swedish härsk); the Middle English Dictionary derives it from that and Middle Low German harsch (“rough”, literally “hairy”) (whence also German harsch), from haer (“hair”), from Old Saxon hār, from Proto-West Germanic *hār; the Oxford Dictionary of English derives it from Middle Low German alone.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ahrsh,harhs,harrsh,harshh,harssh,hasrh,hharsh,hrash
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of harsh - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “harsh”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-A-R-S-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /hɑɹʃ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “has” - see the side-by-side comparison. harsh vs has
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.