Which to use
“hand” and “hands” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #375
- “hand” frequency rank
- #710
- “hands” frequency rank
- 1085
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hand | hands |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The part of the forelimb below the forearm or wrist in a human, and the corresponding part in many other animals. | plural of hand |
Where the eye mixes hand and hands
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. hand (/ˈhænd/) and hands (/hæn(d)z/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “hand” sits inside “hands”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1085, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hand is recorded at frequency rank #375, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhænd/. hands is at rank #710, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hæn(d)z/.
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 1085, this pair ranks #528,135 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hand vs hands
Shared letters: adhn. Private to "hand": -. Private to "hands": s.
"hand" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hands" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC