Which to use
“he's” is a contraction and “hear” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #227
- “he's” frequency rank
- #588
- “hear” frequency rank
- 815
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | he's | hear |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Contraction of he + is. | To perceive sounds through the ear. |
Where the eye mixes he's and hear
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: he's is /ˈhiːz/ while hear is /ˈhɪə/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (contraction vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 815, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
he's is recorded at frequency rank #227, classified as acontraction, pronounced /ˈhiːz/. hear is at rank #588, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈhɪə/.
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 815, this pair ranks #528,730 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of he's vs hear
Shared letters: eh. Private to "he's": s. Private to "hear": ar.
"he's" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "hear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- hear ← ehar · haer · hearr · hhear