He vs hen, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“He” is a symbol and “hen” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,510
“He” frequency rank: #46,208
“hen” frequency rank: 52718
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	He	hen
Definition	Symbole de l’entreprise de fabrication d’avions allemande Heinkel Flugzeugwerke, fondée par Ernst Heinkel en 1922 et absorbée par Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW) en 1965.	Poule.

Letter map: He vs hen

Shared letters muted; letters that set He and hen apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

3 ch

hen

Role in the sentence - He and hen

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: He is asymbol and henanoun. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “He” sits inside “hen”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52718, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

He is recorded at frequency rank #6,510, classified as asymbol. hen is at rank #46,208, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈhɛn\.

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 52718, this pair ranks #145,773 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of He vs hen

Shared letters: eh. Private to "He": -. Private to "hen": n.

"He" · 2 letters · shape CV · "hen" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "He" for "hen" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "He" is a symbol and "hen" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary French text, does "He" or "hen" show up more?

"He" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,510 in our French list, against #46,208 for "hen". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "He" vs "hen" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "He" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "hen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #145,773 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"He" and "hen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hae vs hen". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #145,773 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.