hamvshaniTell them apart

Which to use

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

#19,746
“ham” frequency rank
#35,622
“hani” frequency rank
55368
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ham hani
Definition pernil galo, macho da galinha (Gallus gallus)

Where the eye mixes ham and hani

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

3 ch
ham
4 ch
hani

Visual trap between ham and hani

A purely visual mix-up. ham (/hæm/) and hani (/ˈhaː.nɪ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55368, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ham is recorded at frequency rank #19,746, classified as anoun, pronounced /hæm/. hani is at rank #35,622, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈhaː.nɪ/.

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 55368, this pair ranks #10,632 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ham vs hani

Shared letters: ah. Private to "ham": m. Private to "hani": in.

"ham" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hani" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • haniahni · hain · hanni · hhani · hnai

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ham" and "hani" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/hæm/ versus /ˈhaː.nɪ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "ham" vs "hani" - which ranks higher?
"ham" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,746 in our Portuguese list, against #35,622 for "hani". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ham" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hani" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,632 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ham" and "hani" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hani 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 #10,632 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