# he's vs Hess

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### he's
*contraction · IPA /ˈhiːz/ · frequency rank #227*
Contraction of he + is.

### Hess
*name · IPA /hɛs/ · frequency rank #23,298*
A habitational surname from German of German and Ashkenazi origin, denoting a person from Hesse.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/he-s-vs-hess