hillvshillsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,603
“hill” frequency rank
#3,236
“hills” frequency rank
4839
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hill hills
Definition An elevated landmass smaller than a mountain. plural of hill

Where the eye mixes hill and hills

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hill
5 ch
hills

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. hill (/hɪl/) and hills (/hɪlz/) 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 1 extra letter(s) - “hill” sits inside “hills”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4839, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hill is recorded at frequency rank #1,603, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɪl/. hills is at rank #3,236, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɪlz/.

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 4839, this pair ranks #517,495 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hill vs hills

Shared letters: hil. Private to "hill": -. Private to "hills": s.

"hill" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hills" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hillhhill · hil · hlil · ihll
  • hillshhills · hillss · hils · hilsl · hlils · ihlls

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hill" and "hills" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/hɪl/ versus /hɪlz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "hill" or "hills"?
"hill" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,603 in our English list, against #3,236 for "hills". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list