hamvshimConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#19,746
“ham” frequency rank
#19,748
“him” frequency rank
39494
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ham him
Definition pernil caso objetivo da terceira pessoa masculina do singular, ele, o, lhe

Letter map: ham vs him

Shared letters muted; letters that set ham and him apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
ham
3 ch
him

Role in the sentence - ham and him

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ham is anoun and himapronoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “ham” becomes i in “him”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39494, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ham is recorded at frequency rank #19,746, classified as anoun, pronounced /hæm/. him is at rank #19,748, 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 39494, this pair ranks #26,742 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ham vs him

Shared letters: hm. Private to "ham": a. Private to "him": i.

"ham" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "him" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ham" for "him" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ham" is a noun and "him" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ham" vs "him" - which ranks higher?
"ham" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,746 in our Portuguese list, against #19,748 for "him". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "ham" vs "him" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ham" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "him" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,742 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ham" and "him" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ham vs hamza". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #26,742 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