halvshisConfusable pair

Quick tell: hal is a noun, his is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hal” is a noun and “his” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,531
“hal” frequency rank
#8,209
“his” frequency rank
21740
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hal his
Definition salão pronome do caso possessivo da terceira pessoa masculina do singular, dele.

Letter map: hal vs his

Shared letters muted; letters that set hal and his apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
hal
3 ch
his

Grammar separator: hal vs his

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hal is anoun and hisapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21740, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hal is recorded at frequency rank #13,531, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhæːˀl/. his is at rank #8,209, tagged as apron.

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 21740, this pair ranks #48,442 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hal vs his

Shared letters: h. Private to "hal": al. Private to "his": is.

"hal" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "his" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hal" for "his" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hal" is a noun and "his" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "hal" or "his" show up more?
"his" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,209 in our Portuguese list, against #13,531 for "hal". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "hal" and "his". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hal" 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 #48,442 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hal" and "his" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hal vs hui". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #48,442 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list