havevshawkTell them apart

Which to use

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

#9,020
“have” frequency rank
#28,588
“hawk” frequency rank
37608
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature have hawk
Definition Petite éminence qui, sur le panneton d’une clé bénarde, empêche celle-ci de traverser la serrure. Rapace de la famille des accipitridés, et notamment les éperviers et les vautours.

Where the eye mixes have and hawk

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

4 ch
have
4 ch
hawk

Look-alike desk: have vs hawk

A purely visual mix-up. have (^((h aspiré))\av\) and hawk (\hɔːk\) 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 37608, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

have is recorded at frequency rank #9,020, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\av\. hawk is at rank #28,588, tagged as anoun, pronounced \hɔːk\.

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 37608, this pair ranks #261,288 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of have vs hawk

Shared letters: ah. Private to "have": ev. Private to "hawk": kw.

"have" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "hawk" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • haveahve · haev · havve · hhave · hvae
  • hawkahwk · hakw · hawkk · hawwk · hhawk · hwak

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "have" for "hawk" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (^((h aspiré))\av\ versus \hɔːk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "have" or "hawk"?
"have" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,020 in our French list, against #28,588 for "hawk". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "have" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hawk" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #261,288 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "have" and "hawk" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hash vs hawk". 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 #261,288 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