hearvshrConfusable pair

Quick tell: hear is a verb, hr is an onomatopoeia, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hear” is a verb and “hr” is an onomatopoeia - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,333
“hear” frequency rank
#25,352
“hr” frequency rank
64685
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hear hr
Definition Entendre. Variante de hrr.

Letter map: hear vs hr

Shared letters muted; letters that set hear and hr apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
hear
2 ch
hr

Part-of-speech tell for hear / hr

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hear is averb and hranonomatopoeia. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64685, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hear is recorded at frequency rank #39,333, classified as averb, pronounced \ˈhɪɹ\. hr is at rank #25,352, tagged as anonomatopoeia.

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 64685, this pair ranks #75,844 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hear vs hr

Shared letters: hr. Private to "hear": ae. Private to "hr": -.

"hear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "hr" · 2 letters · shape CC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hearehar · hearr · hera · hhear

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hear" for "hr" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hear" is a verb and "hr" an onomatopoeia, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hear" or "hr"?
"hr" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,352 in our French list, against #39,333 for "hear". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "hear" vs "hr" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hr" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #75,844 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hear" and "hr" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hae vs hear". 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 #75,844 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