hicvshitTell them apart

Which to use

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

#16,382
“hic” frequency rank
#14,695
“hit” frequency rank
31077
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hic hit
Definition Nœud ou principale difficulté d’une affaire, problème. Tube.

Where the eye mixes hic and hit

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

3 ch
hic
3 ch
hit

Visual trap between hic and hit

A purely visual mix-up. hic (^((h aspiré))\ik\) and hit (^((h aspiré))\it\) 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 a single letter - c in “hic” becomes t in “hit”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31077, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hic is recorded at frequency rank #16,382, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ik\. hit is at rank #14,695, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\it\.

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 31077, this pair ranks #306,138 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hic vs hit

Shared letters: hi. Private to "hic": c. Private to "hit": t.

"hic" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hit" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hic" and "hit" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (^((h aspiré))\ik\ versus ^((h aspiré))\it\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "hic" or "hit" show up more?
"hit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,695 in our French list, against #16,382 for "hic". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hic" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #306,138 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hic" and "hit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hae vs hic". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #306,138 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