Which to use
“hire” is a noun and “his” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,628
- “hire” frequency rank
- #34
- “his” frequency rank
- 3662
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hire | his |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A person who has been hired, especially in a cohort. | Belonging to him. |
Where the eye mixes hire and his
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: hire vs his
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hire is /ˈhaɪ(.)ə/ while his is /ɪ̈z/. 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 (noun vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3662, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hire is recorded at frequency rank #3,628, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhaɪ(.)ə/. 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 3662, this pair ranks #521,402 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hire vs his
Shared letters: hi. Private to "hire": er. Private to "his": s.
"hire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "his" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- hire ← hhire · hier · hirre · hrie · ihre
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "hire" and "his" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "hire" or "his"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "hire" and "his" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "hire" 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 #521,402 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hire" and "his" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hire vs hoke". 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 #521,402 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.