hervshocTell them apart

Quick tell: her is a pronoun, hoc is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#13,484
“her” frequency rank
#22,043
“hoc” frequency rank
35527
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature her hoc
Definition Ella. Hacia aquí, hacia este lugar, en esta dirección.

Where the eye mixes her and hoc

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
her
3 ch
hoc

Look-alike desk: her vs hoc

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: her is /ˈhɜː(ɹ)/ (tónico) while hoc is /ˈhoːk/. 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 (pronoun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35527, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

her is recorded at frequency rank #13,484, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈhɜː(ɹ)/ (tónico). hoc is at rank #22,043, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈhoːk/.

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 35527, this pair ranks #185,600 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of her vs hoc

Shared letters: h. Private to "her": er. Private to "hoc": co.

"her" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hoc" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "her" for "hoc" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "her" is a pronoun and "hoc" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "her" or "hoc" show up more?
"her" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,484 in our Spanish list, against #22,043 for "hoc". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "her" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hoc" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #185,600 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "her" and "hoc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hoc vs hut". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #185,600 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list