hervshisConfusable pair

Quick tell: her is a adverb, his is a determiner, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#14,053
“her” frequency rank
#11,230
“his” frequency rank
25283
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature her his
Definition Indique un mouvement en direction du locuteur Son, sa ou ses (à lui).

Where the eye mixes her and his

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

3 ch
her
3 ch
his

Look-alike desk: her vs his

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: her is \heːɐ̯\ while his is \hɪz\. 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 (adverb vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25283, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

her is recorded at frequency rank #14,053, classified as anadv, pronounced \heːɐ̯\. his is at rank #11,230, tagged as adet, pronounced \hɪz\.

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 25283, this pair ranks #341,745 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of her vs his

Shared letters: h. Private to "her": er. Private to "his": is.

"her" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "his" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "her" and "his" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "her" is an adverb and "his" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "her" vs "his" - which ranks higher?
"his" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,230 in our French list, against #14,053 for "her". 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 "his" 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 "his" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #341,745 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "her" and "his" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hae vs her". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #341,745 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list