HeervsherConfusable pair

Quick tell: Heer is a noun, her is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Heer” is a noun and “her” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,963
“Heer” frequency rank
#477
“her” frequency rank
6440
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Heer her
Definition Gesamtheit der Landstreitkräfte eines Staates Bewegung in Richtung des Sprechenden von einem entfernteren Ort aus

Same sound, different letters: Heer vs her

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

4 ch
Heer
3 ch
her

Same sound, different spelling - Heer / her

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: Heer and her carry the same recorded pronunciation, [heːɐ̯]. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadverb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6440, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Heer is recorded at frequency rank #5,963, classified as anoun, pronounced [heːɐ̯]. her is at rank #477, tagged as anadv, pronounced [heːɐ̯].

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 6440, this pair ranks #1,991,635 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Heer vs her

Shared letters: ehr. Private to "Heer": -. Private to "her": -.

"Heer" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "her" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Heerheerr · hheer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Heer" and "her" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Heer" is a noun and "her" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Heer" or "her" show up more?
"her" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #477 in our German list, against #5,963 for "Heer". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "Heer" / "her". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Heer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "her" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,991,635 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Heer" and "her" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Heer vs Hemer". 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 #1,991,635 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