vshoraWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: is a verb, hora is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#88
“há” frequency rank
#232
“hora” frequency rank
320
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hora
Definition terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo haver período de sessenta minutos de tempo; unidade de medida de tempo

Letter map: há vs hora

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

2 ch
há
4 ch
hora

Grammar separator: há vs hora

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: is averb and horaanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 320, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

is recorded at frequency rank #88, classified as averb. hora is at rank #232, tagged as anoun, pronounced ['ɒ.rɐ].

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 320, this pair ranks #75,319 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of há vs hora

Shared letters: h. Private to "há": á. Private to "hora": aor.

"há" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "hora" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • horahhora · hoar · horra · hroa · ohra

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "há" and "hora" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "há" is a verb and "hora" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "há" or "hora" show up more?
"há" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #88 in our Portuguese list, against #232 for "hora". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "há" and "hora". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "há" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hora" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #75,319 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "há" and "hora" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "há vs hui". 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 #75,319 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