Which to use
“her” is a determiner and “hewn” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #58
- “her” frequency rank
- #43,189
- “hewn” frequency rank
- 43247
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | her | hewn |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Belonging to her (belonging to that female person or animal, or in poetic or old-fashioned language that ship, city, season, etc). | Made or crafted by cutting, whittling down. |
Where the spellings diverge
Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set her and hewn apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: her is /ˈhɜː/ while hewn is /hjuːn/. 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 (determiner vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43247, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
her is recorded at frequency rank #58, classified as adet, pronounced /ˈhɜː/. hewn is at rank #43,189, tagged as anadj, pronounced /hjuːn/.
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 43247, this pair ranks #241,804 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of her vs hewn
Shared letters: eh. Private to "her": r. Private to "hewn": nw.
"her" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "hewn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- hewn ← ehwn · henw · hewnn · hewwn · hhewn
Frequency comparison
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "her" and "hewn" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "her" or "hewn"?
Remembering her vs hewn
The fastest way to pick the right one every time.
- Check the role first: if you need a determiner, it's “her”; for an adjective, it's “hewn”.
- See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “her” entry
- Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable