há vs hot, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#88
“há” frequency rank: #6,301
“hot” frequency rank: 6389
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	há	hot
Definition	terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo haver	quente

Letter map: há vs hot

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

2 ch

há

3 ch

hot

Grammar separator: há vs hot

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: há is averb and hotanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6389, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

há is recorded at frequency rank #88, classified as averb. hot is at rank #6,301, tagged as anadj, pronounced /hɒt/.

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 6389, this pair ranks #68,054 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of há vs hot

Shared letters: h. Private to "há": á. Private to "hot": ot.

"há" · 2 letters · shape CV · "hot" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "há" and "hot" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "há" is a verb and "hot" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "há" or "hot" show up more?

"há" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #88 in our Portuguese list, against #6,301 for "hot". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "há" and "hot".

Full dictionary entry for "há" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "hot" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #68,054 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"há" and "hot" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hot vs hui". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #68,054 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.