Which to use
“hen” is a noun and “him” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #13,733
- “hen” frequency rank
- #82
- “him” frequency rank
- 13815
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hen | him |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A female chicken (Gallus gallus), especially a sexually mature one kept for her eggs. | A masculine pronoun; he as a grammatical object. |
Where the spellings diverge
Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set hen and him apart are highlighted. They share 1 letter in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
hen and him form a confusable pair in the English index, two distinct headwords that are easily confused because they look alike, sound alike, or both. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions - close enough that the eye skips over the difference, far enough that meaning fully diverges. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13815, 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/. him is at rank #82, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈhɪm/.
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 13815, this pair ranks #473,673 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Frequency comparison
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "hen" and "him" be used interchangeably?
Remembering hen vs him
The fastest way to pick the right one every time.
- Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “hen”; for a pronoun, it's “him”.
- See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “hen” entry
- Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable