Which to use
“Hess” is a name and “his” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #23,298
- “Hess” frequency rank
- #34
- “his” frequency rank
- 23332
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Hess | his |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A habitational surname from German of German and Ashkenazi origin, denoting a person from Hesse. | Belonging to him. |
Where the eye mixes Hess and his
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: Hess vs his
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Hess is /hɛs/ while his is /ɪ̈z/. 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 (name vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23332, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Hess is recorded at frequency rank #23,298, classified as aname, pronounced /hɛs/. 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 23332, this pair ranks #410,098 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of Hess vs his
Shared letters: hs. Private to "Hess": e. Private to "his": i.
"Hess" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "his" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- Hess ← ehss · hhess · hses
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "Hess" and "his" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "Hess" or "his"?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "Hess" 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 #410,098 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Hess" and "his" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hess vs Hsi". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #410,098 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.