him vs Hu, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#82
“him” frequency rank: #13,362
“Hu” frequency rank: 13444
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	him	Hu
Definition	A masculine pronoun; he as a grammatical object.	A common surname from Chinese of east Asian derivation.

Where the eye mixes him and Hu

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

3 ch

him

2 ch

Visual trap between him and Hu

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: him is /ˈhɪm/ while Hu is /hu/. 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 (pronoun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13444, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

him is recorded at frequency rank #82, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈhɪm/. Hu is at rank #13,362, tagged as aname, pronounced /hu/.

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 13444, this pair ranks #475,769 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of him vs Hu

Shared letters: h. Private to "him": im. Private to "Hu": u.

"him" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "Hu" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "him" and "Hu" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "him" is a pronoun and "Hu" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "him" or "Hu"?

"him" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #82 in our English list, against #13,362 for "Hu". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

Full dictionary entry for "him" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "Hu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #475,769 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"him" and "Hu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "HRW vs Hu". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #475,769 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.