halfvshartTell them apart

Which to use

“half” and “hart” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#13,952
“half” frequency rank
#17,299
“hart” frequency rank
31251
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature half hart
Definition meio duro, rígido

Where the eye mixes half and hart

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
half
4 ch
hart

Why the eye confuses half with hart

A purely visual mix-up. half (/ɦɑlf/) and hart (/hart) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31251, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

half is recorded at frequency rank #13,952, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɦɑlf/. hart is at rank #17,299, tagged as anadj, pronounced /hart.

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 31251, this pair ranks #36,898 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of half vs hart

Shared letters: ah. Private to "half": fl. Private to "hart": rt.

"half" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hart" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • halfahlf · hafl · halff · hallf · hhalf · hlaf
  • hartahrt · harrt · hartt · hatr · hhart · hrat

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "half" for "hart" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ɦɑlf/ versus /hart) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "half" or "hart"?
"half" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,952 in our Portuguese list, against #17,299 for "hart". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "half" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hart" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #36,898 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "half" and "hart" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hart vs Hut". 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 #36,898 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