hatevshawkWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#12,905
“hate” frequency rank
#23,682
“hawk” frequency rank
36587
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hate hawk
Definition ódio falcão

Where the eye mixes hate and hawk

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

4 ch
hate
4 ch
hawk

Visual trap between hate and hawk

A purely visual mix-up. hate (/heɪt/) and hawk (/hɔːk/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36587, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hate is recorded at frequency rank #12,905, classified as anoun, pronounced /heɪt/. hawk is at rank #23,682, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɔːk/.

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 36587, this pair ranks #30,166 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hate vs hawk

Shared letters: ah. Private to "hate": et. Private to "hawk": kw.

"hate" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "hawk" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hateahte · haet · hatte · hhate · htae
  • hawkahwk · hakw · hawkk · hawwk · hhawk · hwak

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hate" for "hawk" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/heɪt/ versus /hɔːk/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "hate" or "hawk"?
"hate" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,905 in our Portuguese list, against #23,682 for "hawk". 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 "hate" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hawk" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,166 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hate" and "hawk" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "haber vs hate". 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 #30,166 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