Which to use
“heal” is a verb and “hes” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,886
- “heal” frequency rank
- #7,568
- “hes” frequency rank
- 13454
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | heal | hes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To make better from a disease, wound, etc.; to revive or cure. | Alternative form of his when pronounced as he's; belonging to him. |
Where the eye mixes heal and hes
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: heal is /hiːl/ while hes is /hiːz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13454, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
heal is recorded at frequency rank #5,886, classified as averb, pronounced /hiːl/. hes is at rank #7,568, tagged as adet, pronounced /hiːz/.
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 13454, this pair ranks #475,706 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of heal vs hes
Shared letters: eh. Private to "heal": al. Private to "hes": s.
"heal" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "hes" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- heal ← ehal · hael · heall · hela · hheal