Which to use
“Hines” is a name and “his” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #26,113
- “Hines” frequency rank
- #34
- “his” frequency rank
- 26147
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Hines | his |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A surname from Irish. | Belonging to him. |
Where the eye mixes Hines and his
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: Hines vs his
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Hines is /haɪnz/ while his is /ɪ̈z/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 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 26147, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Hines is recorded at frequency rank #26,113, classified as aname, pronounced /haɪnz/. 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 26147, this pair ranks #388,852 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of Hines vs his
Shared letters: his. Private to "Hines": en. Private to "his": -.
"Hines" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "his" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- Hines ← hhines · hiens · hiness · hinnes · hinse · hnies · ihnes
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "Hines" and "his" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "Hines" or "his" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "Hines" 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 #388,852 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Hines" and "his" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hines vs hing". 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 #388,852 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.