vsHCWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: is a verb, HC is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“há” is a verb and “HC” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#88
“há” frequency rank
#25,330
“HC” frequency rank
25418
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature HC
Definition terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo haver habeas corpus (medida judicial extrema de garantia da liberdade)

Letter map: há vs HC

Shared letters muted; letters that set and HC apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch
há
2 ch
HC

Role in the sentence - há and HC

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: is averb and HCanabbrev. On the page they differ by a single letter - á in “há” becomes c in “HC”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25418, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

is recorded at frequency rank #88, classified as averb. HC is at rank #25,330, tagged as anabbrev.

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 25418, this pair ranks #43,898 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of há vs HC

Shared letters: h. Private to "há": á. Private to "HC": c.

"há" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "HC" · 2 letters · shape CC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "há" and "HC" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "há" is a verb and "HC" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "há" or "HC" show up more?
"há" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #88 in our Portuguese list, against #25,330 for "HC". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "há" vs "HC" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "há" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "HC" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #43,898 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "há" and "HC" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "HC vs hui". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #43,898 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list