he's vs heels, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#29,620
“he's” frequency rank: #17,932
“heels” frequency rank: 47552
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	he's	heels
Definition	he is: er ist	Plural des Substantivs heel

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set he's and heels apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch

he's

5 ch

heels

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: he's is anabbrev and heelsanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47552, 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 […]. heels is at rank #17,932, tagged as anoun, pronounced [hiːlz].

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 47552, this pair ranks #1,280,281 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of he's vs heels

Shared letters: ehs. Private to "he's": -. Private to "heels": l.

"he's" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "heels" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

heels ← ehels · heells · heelss · heesl · heles · hels · hheels

Frequency comparison

he's#29,620

heels#17,932

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "he's" and "heels" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "he's" is an abbrev and "heels" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "he's" or "heels"?

"heels" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,932 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.

Remembering he's vs heels

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need an abbrev, it's “he's”; for a noun, it's “heels”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “he's” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable