himvshmmmTell them apart

Quick tell: him is a pronoun, hmmm is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“him” is a pronoun and “hmmm” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,118
“him” frequency rank
#13,625
“hmmm” frequency rank
28743
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature him hmmm
Definition Personalpronomen 3. Person Maskulinum Singular Objektform: ihm, ihn zur Überbrückung einer Denkpause eingesetzter Verzögerungslaut

Where the eye mixes him and hmmm

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. him runs 3 letters (CVC) against hmmm's 4 (CCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
him
4 ch
hmmm

Visual trap between him and hmmm

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: him is [hɪm] while hmmm is [ɦmmm]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28743, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

him is recorded at frequency rank #15,118, classified as apron, pronounced [hɪm]. hmmm is at rank #13,625, tagged as anintj, pronounced [ɦmmm].

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 28743, this pair ranks #1,779,397 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of him vs hmmm

Shared letters: hm. Private to "him": i. Private to "hmmm": -.

"him" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hmmm" · 4 letters · shape CCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hmmm ← hhmmm · mhmm

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "him" for "hmmm" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "him" is a pronoun and "hmmm" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "him" or "hmmm"?
"hmmm" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,625 in our German list, against #15,118 for "him". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "him" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hmmm" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,779,397 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "him" and "hmmm" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "him vs höh". 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 #1,779,397 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