Which to use
“heart” is a noun and “her” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #491
- “heart” frequency rank
- #58
- “her” frequency rank
- 549
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | heart | her |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A muscular organ that pumps blood through the body, traditionally thought to be the seat of emotion. | Belonging to her (belonging to that female person or animal, or in poetic or old-fashioned language that ship, city, season, etc). |
Where the eye mixes heart and her
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between heart and her
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: heart is /hɑːt/ while her is /ˈhɜː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 549, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
heart is recorded at frequency rank #491, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɑːt/. her is at rank #58, tagged as adet, pronounced /ˈhɜː/.
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 549, this pair ranks #529,219 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of heart vs her
Shared letters: ehr. Private to "heart": at. Private to "her": -.
"heart" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "her" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- heart ← ehart · haert · hearrt · heartt · heatr · hheart
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "heart" for "her" ever safe?
Frequency check: "heart" vs "her" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "heart" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "her" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #529,219 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "heart" and "her" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heart vs Hoare". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #529,219 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.