haievshideConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#16,379
“haie” frequency rank
#47,373
“hide” frequency rank
63752
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature haie hide
Definition Ensemble linéaire, naturel ou artificiel, de végétaux (dont parfois des arbres), ligneux, semi-ligneux, herbacés, plus ou moins homogène (taille, espèces, etc.) et servant parfois de clôture, de limite entre deux parcelles cadastrales ou de protection contre la vue et le vent ou simplement dans un but purement décoratif. Cuir, peau (des animaux vivants).

Where the eye mixes haie and hide

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. haie (CVVV) and hide (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
haie
4 ch
hide

Why the eye confuses haie with hide

A purely visual mix-up. haie (^((h aspiré))\ɛ\) and hide (\haɪd\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63752, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

haie is recorded at frequency rank #16,379, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɛ\. hide is at rank #47,373, tagged as anoun, pronounced \haɪd\.

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 63752, this pair ranks #80,390 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of haie vs hide

Shared letters: ehi. Private to "haie": a. Private to "hide": d.

"haie" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "hide" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • haie ← ahie · haei · hhaie · hiae
  • hide ← hdie · hhide · hidde · hied · ihde

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "haie" for "hide" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (^((h aspiré))\ɛ\ versus \haɪd\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "haie" or "hide"?
"haie" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,379 in our French list, against #47,373 for "hide". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "haie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hide" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #80,390 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "haie" and "hide" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hedge vs hide". 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 #80,390 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