Which to use
“hen” is a noun and “her” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #13,733
- “hen” frequency rank
- #58
- “her” frequency rank
- 13791
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hen | her |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A female chicken (Gallus gallus), especially a sexually mature one kept for her eggs. | 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 hen and her
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between hen and her
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hen is /hɛn/ while her is /ˈhɜː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - n in “hen” becomes r in “her”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13791, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hen is recorded at frequency rank #13,733, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɛn/. 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 13791, this pair ranks #473,804 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hen vs her
Shared letters: eh. Private to "hen": n. Private to "her": r.
"hen" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "her" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "hen" and "her" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "hen" or "her"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "hen" and "her" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "hen" 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 #473,804 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hen" and "her" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hen vs HRW". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #473,804 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.