hãovsheatTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#24,033
“hão” frequency rank
#24,027
“heat” frequency rank
48060
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hão heat
Definition terceira pessoa do plural do presente do indicativo do verbo haver calor

Letter map: hão vs heat

Shared letters muted; letters that set hão and heat apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. hão runs 3 letters (CVV) against heat's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
hão
4 ch
heat

Grammar separator: hão vs heat

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hão is averb and heatanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48060, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hão is recorded at frequency rank #24,033, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈɐ̃w̃/ [ˈɐ̃ʊ̯̃]. heat is at rank #24,027, tagged as anoun.

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 48060, this pair ranks #17,152 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hão vs heat

Shared letters: h. Private to "hão": oã. Private to "heat": aet.

"hão" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "heat" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heat ← ehat · heatt · heta · hheat

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hão" for "heat" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hão" is a verb and "heat" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hão" or "heat"?
"heat" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,027 in our Portuguese list, against #24,033 for "hão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "hão" vs "heat" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "heat" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,152 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hão" and "heat" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hão 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 #17,152 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