hitsvsHuttWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: hits is a determiner, Hutt is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hits” is a determiner and “Hutt” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,254
“hits” frequency rank
#39,852
“Hutt” frequency rank
42106
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hits Hutt
Definition Alternative form of its. A surname.

Where the eye mixes hits and Hutt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. hits and Hutt follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
hits
4 ch
Hutt

Look-alike desk: hits vs Hutt

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hits is /hɪts/ while Hutt is /hʌt/. 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 (determiner vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42106, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hits is recorded at frequency rank #2,254, classified as adet, pronounced /hɪts/. Hutt is at rank #39,852, tagged as aname, pronounced /hʌt/.

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 42106, this pair ranks #252,256 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hits vs Hutt

Shared letters: ht. Private to "hits": is. Private to "Hutt": u.

"hits" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "Hutt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hits ← hhits · hitss · hitts · ihts
  • Hutt ← hhutt · htut · uhtt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hits" for "Hutt" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hits" is a determiner and "Hutt" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "hits" vs "Hutt" - which ranks higher?
"hits" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,254 in our English list, against #39,852 for "Hutt". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "hits" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Hutt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #252,256 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hits" and "Hutt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "HIIT vs Hutt". 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 #252,256 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list