Which to use
“harm” is a noun and “him” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,169
- “harm” frequency rank
- #82
- “him” frequency rank
- 3251
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | harm | him |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Physical injury; hurt; damage. | A masculine pronoun; he as a grammatical object. |
Where the eye mixes harm and him
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: harm vs him
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: harm is /hɑːm/ while him is /ˈhɪm/. 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 (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3251, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
harm is recorded at frequency rank #3,169, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɑːm/. 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 3251, this pair ranks #522,667 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of harm vs him
Shared letters: hm. Private to "harm": ar. Private to "him": i.
"harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "him" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- harm ← ahrm · hamr · harmm · harrm · hharm · hram
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "harm" and "him" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "harm" or "him"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "harm" 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 #522,667 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "harm" and "him" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "harm vs Hoare". 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 #522,667 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.