haevshaveWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“hae” and “have” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#49,121
“hae” frequency rank
#9,020
“have” frequency rank
58141
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hae have
Definition Kava. Petite éminence qui, sur le panneton d’une clé bénarde, empêche celle-ci de traverser la serrure.

Where the eye mixes hae and have

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. hae runs 3 letters (CVV) against have's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
hae
4 ch
have

Visual trap between hae and have

A purely visual mix-up. hae (\hae\) and have (^((h aspiré))\av\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58141, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hae is recorded at frequency rank #49,121, classified as anoun, pronounced \hae\. have is at rank #9,020, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\av\.

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 58141, this pair ranks #110,787 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hae vs have

Shared letters: aeh. Private to "hae": -. Private to "have": v.

"hae" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "have" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • have ← ahve · haev · havve · hhave · hvae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hae" and "have" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\hae\ versus ^((h aspiré))\av\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "hae" or "have"?
"have" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,020 in our French list, against #49,121 for "hae". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hae" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "have" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #110,787 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hae" and "have" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hae vs Hatem". 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 #110,787 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list