herovshetWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“hero” and “het” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#17,729
“hero” frequency rank
#17,730
“het” frequency rank
35459
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hero het
Definition Héros, personne héroïque, personne d’un grand courage. Variante de hèt.

Where the eye mixes hero and het

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hero
3 ch
het

Visual trap between hero and het

A purely visual mix-up. hero (\ˈhɪɹ.oʊ\) and het (^((h aspiré))\ɛt\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35459, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hero is recorded at frequency rank #17,729, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈhɪɹ.oʊ\. het is at rank #17,730, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɛt\.

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 35459, this pair ranks #276,617 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hero vs het

Shared letters: eh. Private to "hero": or. Private to "het": t.

"hero" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "het" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heroehro · heor · herro · hhero · hreo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hero" for "het" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈhɪɹ.oʊ\ versus ^((h aspiré))\ɛt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "hero" or "het"?
"hero" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,729 in our French list, against #17,730 for "het". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hero" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "het" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #276,617 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hero" and "het" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hae vs het". 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 #276,617 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