hartvshearTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#17,299
“hart” frequency rank
#23,683
“hear” frequency rank
40982
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hart hear
Definition duro, rígido ouvir

Where the eye mixes hart and hear

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. hart (CVCC) and hear (CVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
hart
4 ch
hear

Visual trap between hart and hear

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hart is /hart while hear is /hiːɹ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40982, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hart is recorded at frequency rank #17,299, classified as anadj, pronounced /hart. 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 40982, this pair ranks #25,032 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hart vs hear

Shared letters: ahr. Private to "hart": t. Private to "hear": e.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hart ← ahrt · harrt · hartt · hatr · hhart · hrat
  • hear ← ehar · haer · hearr · hhear

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hart" for "hear" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hart" is an adjective and "hear" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "hart" or "hear" show up more?
"hart" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,299 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "hart" 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 #25,032 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hart" 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 #25,032 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