henvshohenWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: hen is a noun, hohen is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hen” is a noun and “hohen” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,162
“hen” frequency rank
#858
“hohen” frequency rank
35020
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hen hohen
Definition die Henne, ein weiblicher Vogel Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Flexion des Adjektivs hoch

Where the eye mixes hen and hohen

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. hen runs 3 letters (CVC) against hohen's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
hen
5 ch
hohen

Visual trap between hen and hohen

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hen is [hɛn] while hohen is [ˈhoːən]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “hen” sits inside “hohen”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35020, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hen is recorded at frequency rank #34,162, classified as anoun, pronounced [hɛn]. hohen is at rank #858, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈhoːən].

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 35020, this pair ranks #1,649,935 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hen vs hohen

Shared letters: ehn. Private to "hen": -. Private to "hohen": o.

"hen" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hohen" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hohen ← hhoen · hhohen · hoehn · hohenn · hohhen · hohne · ohhen

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "hen" and "hohen" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hen" is a noun and "hohen" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "hen" vs "hohen" - which ranks higher?
"hohen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #858 in our German list, against #34,162 for "hen". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "hen" and "hohen" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hen" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hohen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,649,935 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hen" and "hohen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heel vs hen". 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 #1,649,935 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