hartvshetTell them apart

Which to use

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

#14,693
“hart” frequency rank
#17,730
“het” frequency rank
32423
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hart het
Definition Espèce de lien fait d’osier, ou d’autre bois souple, dont on lie les fagots, les bourrées, etc. Variante de hèt.

Where the eye mixes hart and het

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hart
3 ch
het

Visual trap between hart and het

A purely visual mix-up. hart (^((h aspiré))\aʁ\) and het (^((h aspiré))\ɛt\) 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 32423, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hart is recorded at frequency rank #14,693, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\aʁ\. het is at rank #17,730, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɛt\.

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 32423, this pair ranks #297,396 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hart vs het

Shared letters: ht. Private to "hart": ar. Private to "het": e.

"hart" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "het" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hartahrt · harrt · hartt · hatr · hhart · hrat

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hart" for "het" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (^((h aspiré))\aʁ\ versus ^((h aspiré))\ɛt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "hart" or "het"?
"hart" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,693 in our French list, against #17,730 for "het". 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 "hart" and "het" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hart" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "het" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #297,396 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hart" and "het" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hae vs het". 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 #297,396 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