Which to use
“head” and “help” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #288
- “head” frequency rank
- #171
- “help” frequency rank
- 459
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | head | help |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs. | Action given to provide assistance; aid. |
Where the eye mixes head and help
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. head (/ˈhɛd/) and help (/hɛlp/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 459, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
head is recorded at frequency rank #288, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhɛd/. help is at rank #171, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɛlp/.
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 459, this pair ranks #529,375 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of head vs help
Shared letters: eh. Private to "head": ad. Private to "help": lp.
"head" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "help" · 4 letters · shape CVCC