he's vs hed, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“he's” is a contraction and “hed” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#227
“he's” frequency rank: #44,253
“hed” frequency rank: 44480
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	he's	hed
Definition	Contraction of he + is.	The headline of a news story.

Letter map: he's vs hed

Shared letters muted; letters that set he's and hed apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

he's

3 ch

hed

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: he's is acontraction and hedanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44480, 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/. hed is at rank #44,253, tagged as anoun.

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 44480, this pair ranks #230,134 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of he's vs hed

Shared letters: eh. Private to "he's": s. Private to "hed": d.

"he's" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "hed" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "he's" and "hed" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "he's" is a contraction and "hed" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "he's" or "hed"?

"he's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #227 in our English list, against #44,253 for "hed". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.