tharvstheeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: thar is a adverb, thee is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“thar” is an adverb and “thee” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,944
“thar” frequency rank
#6,748
“thee” frequency rank
49692
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature thar thee
Definition Nonstandard form of there. Objective and reflexive case of thou.

Letter map: thar vs thee

Shared letters muted; letters that set thar and thee apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. thar (CCVC) and thee (CCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
thar
4 ch
thee

Grammar separator: thar vs thee

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: thar is anadverb and theeapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49692, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

thar is recorded at frequency rank #42,944, classified as anadv. thee is at rank #6,748, tagged as apron, pronounced /ðiː/.

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 49692, this pair ranks #181,233 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of thar vs thee

Shared letters: ht. Private to "thar": ar. Private to "thee": e.

"thar" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "thee" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • thar ← htar · tahr · tharr · thhar · thra · tthar
  • thee ← htee · tehe · thhee · tthee

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "thar" and "thee" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "thar" is an adverb and "thee" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "thar" or "thee" show up more?
"thee" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,748 in our English list, against #42,944 for "thar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "thar" and "thee".

  • Full dictionary entry for "thar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "thee" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #181,233 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "thar" and "thee" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thar vs Trav". 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 #181,233 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