hawkvshawksTell them apart

Which to use

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

#28,588
“hawk” frequency rank
#24,995
“hawks” frequency rank
53583
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hawk hawks
Definition Rapace de la famille des accipitridés, et notamment les éperviers et les vautours. Pluriel de hawk.

Where the eye mixes hawk and hawks

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hawk
5 ch
hawks

Visual trap between hawk and hawks

A purely visual mix-up. hawk (\hɔːk\) and hawks (\hɔːks\) 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 extra letter(s) - “hawk” sits inside “hawks”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53583, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hawk is recorded at frequency rank #28,588, classified as anoun, pronounced \hɔːk\. hawks is at rank #24,995, tagged as anoun, pronounced \hɔːks\.

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 53583, this pair ranks #139,719 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hawk vs hawks

Shared letters: ahkw. Private to "hawk": -. Private to "hawks": s.

"hawk" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hawks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hawkahwk · hakw · hawkk · hawwk · hhawk · hwak
  • hawksahwks · hakws · hawkks · hawkss · hawsk · hawwks · hhawks · hwaks

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "hawk" and "hawks" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\hɔːk\ versus \hɔːks\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "hawk" vs "hawks" - which ranks higher?
"hawks" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,995 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 "hawk" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hawks" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #139,719 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hawk" and "hawks" 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 #139,719 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