harmvshimWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: harm is a noun, him is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“harm” is a noun and “him” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,723
“harm” frequency rank
#15,118
“him” frequency rank
61841
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature harm him
Definition körperlicher oder geistiger Schaden Personalpronomen 3. Person Maskulinum Singular Objektform: ihm, ihn

Letter map: harm vs him

Shared letters muted; letters that set harm and him apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
harm
3 ch
him

Grammar separator: harm vs him

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: harm is anoun and himapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61841, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

harm is recorded at frequency rank #46,723, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. him is at rank #15,118, tagged as apron, pronounced [hɪm].

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 61841, this pair ranks #734,674 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of harm vs him

Shared letters: hm. Private to "harm": ar. Private to "him": i.

"harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "him" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • harmahrm · hamr · harmm · harrm · hharm · hram

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "harm" and "him" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "harm" is a noun and "him" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "harm" or "him"?
"him" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,118 in our German list, against #46,723 for "harm". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "harm" and "him".

  • Full dictionary entry for "harm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "him" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #734,674 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "harm" and "him" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "harm vs puzzles". 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 #734,674 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list