Which to use
“he's” is a contraction and “hero” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #227
- “he's” frequency rank
- #2,114
- “hero” frequency rank
- 2341
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | he's | hero |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Contraction of he + is. | Somebody who possesses great bravery and carries out extraordinary or noble deeds. |
Where the eye mixes he's and hero
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 hero is /ˈhɪə.ɹəʊ/. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2341, 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/. hero is at rank #2,114, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈhɪə.ɹəʊ/.
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 2341, this pair ranks #525,224 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of he's vs hero
Shared letters: eh. Private to "he's": s. Private to "hero": or.
"he's" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "hero" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- hero ← ehro · heor · herro · hhero · hreo