hepvshimWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: hep is a noun, him is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hep” is a noun and “him” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,523
“hep” frequency rank
#82
“him” frequency rank
34605
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hep him
Definition hepatitis. A masculine pronoun; he as a grammatical object.

Where the eye mixes hep and him

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
hep
3 ch
him

Why the eye confuses hep with him

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hep is /hɛp/ while him is /ˈhɪm/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34605, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hep is recorded at frequency rank #34,523, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɛp/. 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 34605, this pair ranks #319,347 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hep vs him

Shared letters: h. Private to "hep": ep. Private to "him": im.

"hep" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "him" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hep" and "him" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hep" is a noun and "him" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "hep" vs "him" - which ranks higher?
"him" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #82 in our English list, against #34,523 for "hep". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "hep" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "him" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #319,347 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hep" and "him" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hep vs HRW". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #319,347 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