harémvshateWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#35,624
“harém” frequency rank
#12,905
“hate” frequency rank
48529
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature harém hate
Definition parte do palácio onde vivem as mulheres (entre os povos muçulmanos) ódio

Where the eye mixes harém and hate

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

5 ch
harém
4 ch
hate

Why the eye confuses harém with hate

A purely visual mix-up. harém (/a.ˈɾɐ̃j̃/) and hate (/heɪt/) 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 48529, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

harém is recorded at frequency rank #35,624, classified as anoun, pronounced /a.ˈɾɐ̃j̃/. hate is at rank #12,905, tagged as anoun, pronounced /heɪt/.

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 48529, this pair ranks #16,636 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of harém vs hate

Shared letters: ah. Private to "harém": mré. Private to "hate": et.

"harém" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "hate" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hateahte · haet · hatte · hhate · htae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "harém" for "hate" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/a.ˈɾɐ̃j̃/ versus /heɪt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "harém" or "hate"?
"hate" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,905 in our Portuguese list, against #35,624 for "harém". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "harém" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hate" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,636 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "harém" and "hate" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "haber vs harém". 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 #16,636 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