his vs hit, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“his” is a determiner and “hit” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34
“his” frequency rank: #421
“hit” frequency rank: 455
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	his	hit
Definition	Belonging to him.	To strike.

Where the eye mixes his and hit

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch

his

3 ch

hit

Why the eye confuses his with hit

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: his is /ɪ̈z/ while hit is /hɪt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - s in “his” becomes t in “hit”, and the parts of speech differ too (determiner vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 455, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

his is recorded at frequency rank #34, classified as adet, pronounced /ɪ̈z/. hit is at rank #421, tagged as averb, pronounced /hɪt/.

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 455, this pair ranks #529,387 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of his vs hit

Shared letters: hi. Private to "his": s. Private to "hit": t.

"his" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "hit" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "his" and "hit" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "his" is a determiner and "hit" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "his" vs "hit" - which ranks higher?

"his" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34 in our English list, against #421 for "hit". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

Full dictionary entry for "his" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "hit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #529,387 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"his" and "hit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "HIIT vs hit". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #529,387 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.