tharvsthemWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#42,944
“thar” frequency rank
#71
“them” frequency rank
43015
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature thar them
Definition Nonstandard form of there. Those ones.

Letter map: thar vs them

Shared letters muted; letters that set thar and them apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
thar
4 ch
them

Grammar separator: thar vs them

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: thar is anadverb and themapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43015, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

thar is recorded at frequency rank #42,944, classified as anadv. them is at rank #71, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈðɛm/.

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 43015, this pair ranks #244,008 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of thar vs them

Shared letters: ht. Private to "thar": ar. Private to "them": em.

"thar" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "them" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tharhtar · tahr · tharr · thhar · thra · tthar
  • themhtem · tehm · themm · thhem · thme · tthem

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "thar" and "them" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "thar" is an adverb and "them" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "thar" vs "them" - which ranks higher?
"them" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #71 in our English list, against #42,944 for "thar". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "thar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "them" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #244,008 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "thar" and "them" 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 #244,008 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