he'svsHelmsWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#29,620
“he's” frequency rank
#41,236
“Helms” frequency rank
70856
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature he's Helms
Definition he is: er ist Genitiv Singular des Substantivs Helm

Letter map: he's vs Helms

Shared letters muted; letters that set he's and Helms apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. he's runs 3 letters (CVC) against Helms's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
he's
5 ch
Helms

Part-of-speech tell for he's / Helms

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: he's is anabbrev and Helmsanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70856, 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 […]. Helms is at rank #41,236, tagged as anoun, pronounced [hɛlms].

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 70856, this pair ranks #433,851 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of he's vs Helms

Shared letters: ehs. Private to "he's": -. Private to "Helms": lm.

"he's" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "Helms" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Helms ← ehlms · hellms · helmms · helmss · helsm · hemls · hhelms · hlems

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "he's" for "Helms" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "he's" is an abbrev and "Helms" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "he's" or "Helms" show up more?
"he's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,620 in our German list, against #41,236 for "Helms". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "he's" vs "Helms" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "he's" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Helms" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #433,851 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "he's" and "Helms" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Helms vs Homs". 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 #433,851 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