hes vs his, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“hes” and “his” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#7,568
“hes” frequency rank: #34
“his” frequency rank: 7602
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	hes	his
Definition	Alternative form of his when pronounced as he's; belonging to him.	Belonging to him.

Where the eye mixes hes and his

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch

hes

3 ch

his

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. hes (/hiːz/) and his (/ɪ̈z/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - e in “hes” becomes i in “his”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7602, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hes is recorded at frequency rank #7,568, classified as adet, pronounced /hiːz/. his is at rank #34, tagged as adet, pronounced /ɪ̈z/.

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 7602, this pair ranks #506,415 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hes vs his

Shared letters: hs. Private to "hes": e. Private to "his": i.

"hes" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "his" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hes" and "his" be used interchangeably?

No. They are said differently (/hiːz/ versus /ɪ̈z/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.

Which is more common, "hes" or "his"?

"his" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34 in our English list, against #7,568 for "hes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "hes" and "his". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "hes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "his" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #506,415 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"hes" and "his" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hes vs HRW". Nearby pair

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.