Which to use
“hampe” and “harpe” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,204
- “hampe” frequency rank
- #19,555
- “harpe” frequency rank
- 65759
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hampe | harpe |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Long manche ou support, généralement en bois, d’un pinceau, d’une arme d’hast, d’une pertuisane, d’un épieu, d’un écouvillon ou d’un refouloir. | Cordophone à cordes pincées, que l'on tient debout, reposant par terre, garni de cordes verticales de longueur décroissante, que l’on pince avec les doigts. |
Where the eye mixes hampe and harpe
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. hampe and harpe follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between hampe and harpe
A purely visual mix-up. hampe (^((h aspiré))\ɑ̃p\) and harpe (^((h aspiré))\aʁp\) 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 a single letter - m in “hampe” becomes r in “harpe”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65759, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hampe is recorded at frequency rank #46,204, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɑ̃p\. harpe is at rank #19,555, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\aʁp\.
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 65759, this pair ranks #70,912 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of hampe vs harpe
Shared letters: aehp. Private to "hampe": m. Private to "harpe": r.
"hampe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "harpe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "hampe" for "harpe" ever safe?
Which is more common, "hampe" or "harpe"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "hampe" and "harpe" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "hampe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "harpe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #70,912 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hampe" and "harpe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hae vs hampe". 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 #70,912 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.