harevsHerrWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#36,876
“hare” frequency rank
#32,434
“Herr” frequency rank
69310
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hare Herr
Definition Variante de hart. Monsieur, appellation permettant de s’adresser de façon polie à un homme, normalement suivi par son nom de famille ou son titre.

Where the eye mixes hare and Herr

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. hare (CVCV) and Herr (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
hare
4 ch
Herr

Visual trap between hare and Herr

A purely visual mix-up. hare (\aʁ\) and Herr (\hɛʁ\) 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 69310, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hare is recorded at frequency rank #36,876, classified as anoun, pronounced \aʁ\. Herr is at rank #32,434, tagged as anoun, pronounced \hɛʁ\.

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 69310, this pair ranks #55,627 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hare vs Herr

Shared letters: ehr. Private to "hare": a. Private to "Herr": -.

"hare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Herr" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hare ← ahre · haer · harre · hhare · hrae
  • Herr ← ehrr · hherr · hrer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hare" for "Herr" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\aʁ\ versus \hɛʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "hare" or "Herr"?
"Herr" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,434 in our French list, against #36,876 for "hare". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "hare" and "Herr" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Herr" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #55,627 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hare" and "Herr" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hare 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 #55,627 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