Which to use
“him” is a pronoun and “hug” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #82
- “him” frequency rank
- #6,147
- “hug” frequency rank
- 6229
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | him | hug |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A masculine pronoun; he as a grammatical object. | A close embrace, especially when charged with an emotion such as affection, joy, relief, lust, anger, aggression, compassion, and the like, as opposed to being characterized by formality, equivocation or ambivalence (a half-embrace or "little hug"). |
Where the eye mixes him and hug
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.
Look-alike desk: him vs hug
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: him is /ˈhɪm/ while hug is /hʌɡ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6229, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
him is recorded at frequency rank #82, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈhɪm/. hug is at rank #6,147, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hʌɡ/.
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 6229, this pair ranks #512,237 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of him vs hug
Shared letters: h. Private to "him": im. Private to "hug": gu.
"him" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "hug" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "him" and "hug" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "him" or "hug" show up more?
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 "hug" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #512,237 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "him" and "hug" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "HRW vs hug". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #512,237 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.