hint vs hints, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#6,363
“hint” frequency rank: #8,944
“hints” frequency rank: 15307
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	hint	hints
Definition	A clue.	plural of hint

Where the eye mixes hint and hints

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

4 ch

hint

5 ch

hints

Look-alike desk: hint vs hints

A purely visual mix-up. hint (/hɪnt/) and hints (/hɪnts/) 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) - “hint” sits inside “hints”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15307, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hint is recorded at frequency rank #6,363, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɪnt/. hints is at rank #8,944, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɪnts/.

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 15307, this pair ranks #464,827 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hint vs hints

Shared letters: hint. Private to "hint": -. Private to "hints": s.

"hint" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hints" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

hint ← hhint · hinnt · hintt · hitn · hnit · ihnt
hints ← hhints · hinnts · hinst · hintss · hintts · hitns · hnits · ihnts

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hint" for "hints" ever safe?

No. They are said differently (/hɪnt/ versus /hɪnts/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.

In ordinary English text, does "hint" or "hints" show up more?

"hint" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,363 in our English list, against #8,944 for "hints". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "hint" and "hints" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

Full dictionary entry for "hint" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "hints" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #464,827 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"hint" and "hints" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "HIIT vs hints". 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 #464,827 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.