heiressvshere'sWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: heiress is a noun, here's is a contraction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“heiress” is a noun and “here's” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,456
“heiress” frequency rank
#1,307
“here's” frequency rank
27763
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heiress here's
Definition A woman who has a right of inheritance or who stands to inherit. Contraction of here + is.

Where the eye mixes heiress and here's

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. heiress runs 7 letters (CVVCVCC) against here's's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
heiress
6 ch
here's

Why the eye confuses heiress with here's

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: heiress is /ɛəˈɹɛs/ while here's is /hɪɹz/. 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 (noun vs contraction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27763, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heiress is recorded at frequency rank #26,456, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɛəˈɹɛs/. here's is at rank #1,307, tagged as acontraction, pronounced /hɪɹz/.

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 27763, this pair ranks #376,302 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of heiress vs here's

Shared letters: ehrs. Private to "heiress": i. Private to "here's": -.

"heiress" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC  ·  "here's" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heiress ← ehiress · heierss · heires · heirress · heirses · heriess · hheiress · hieress

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "heiress" for "here's" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "heiress" is a noun and "here's" a contraction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "heiress" or "here's" show up more?
"here's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,307 in our English list, against #26,456 for "heiress". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "heiress" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "here's" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #376,302 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heiress" and "here's" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hairless vs heiress". 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 #376,302 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list