hamsvshimTell them apart

Quick tell: hams is a noun, him is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#34,094
“hams” frequency rank
#82
“him” frequency rank
34176
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hams him
Definition plural of ham A masculine pronoun; he as a grammatical object.

Letter map: hams vs him

Shared letters muted; letters that set hams and him apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
hams
3 ch
him

Role in the sentence - hams and him

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hams is anoun and himapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34176, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hams is recorded at frequency rank #34,094, classified as anoun. him is at rank #82, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈhɪm/.

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 34176, this pair ranks #323,021 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hams vs him

Shared letters: hm. Private to "hams": as. Private to "him": i.

"hams" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "him" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hamsahms · hamms · hamss · hasm · hhams

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hams" for "him" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hams" is a noun and "him" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hams" or "him"?
"him" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #82 in our English list, against #34,094 for "hams". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "hams" vs "him" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hams" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "him" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #323,021 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hams" and "him" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hammy vs hams". 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 #323,021 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list