hardvshearWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#7,418
“hard” frequency rank
#23,683
“hear” frequency rank
31101
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hard hear
Definition condição de atuação difícil, dura ouvir

Letter map: hard vs hear

Shared letters muted; letters that set hard and hear apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
hard
4 ch
hear

Part-of-speech tell for hard / hear

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hard is anoun and hearaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31101, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hard is recorded at frequency rank #7,418, classified as anoun. hear is at rank #23,683, tagged as averb, pronounced /hiːɹ/.

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 31101, this pair ranks #37,096 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hard vs hear

Shared letters: ahr. Private to "hard": d. Private to "hear": e.

"hard" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hardahrd · hadr · hardd · harrd · hhard · hrad
  • hearehar · haer · hearr · hhear

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hard" for "hear" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hard" is a noun and "hear" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "hard" vs "hear" - which ranks higher?
"hard" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,418 in our Portuguese list, against #23,683 for "hear". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "hard" vs "hear" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hard" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hear" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,096 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hard" and "hear" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hear vs Hebe". 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 #37,096 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