he'svshebtWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: he's is a abbrev, hebt is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“he's” is an abbrev and “hebt” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,620
“he's” frequency rank
#5,377
“hebt” frequency rank
34997
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature he's hebt
Definition he is: er ist 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs heben

Letter map: he's vs hebt

Shared letters muted; letters that set he's and hebt apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. he's runs 3 letters (CVC) against hebt's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
he's
4 ch
hebt

Grammar separator: he's vs hebt

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: he's is anabbrev and hebtaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34997, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

he's is recorded at frequency rank #29,620, classified as anabbrev, pronounced […]. hebt is at rank #5,377, tagged as averb, pronounced [heːpt].

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 34997, this pair ranks #1,650,453 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of he's vs hebt

Shared letters: eh. Private to "he's": s. Private to "hebt": bt.

"he's" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hebt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hebt ← ehbt · hbet · hebbt · hebtt · hetb · hhebt

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "he's" and "hebt" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "he's" is an abbrev and "hebt" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "he's" or "hebt" show up more?
"hebt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,377 in our German list, against #29,620 for "he's". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "he's" and "hebt". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "he's" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hebt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,650,453 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "he's" and "hebt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "he's 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 #1,650,453 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