hãovshimTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#24,033
“hão” frequency rank
#19,748
“him” frequency rank
43781
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hão him
Definition terceira pessoa do plural do presente do indicativo do verbo haver caso objetivo da terceira pessoa masculina do singular, ele, o, lhe

Letter map: hão vs him

Shared letters muted; letters that set hão and him apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. hão (CVV) and him (CVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

3 ch
hão
3 ch
him

Part-of-speech tell for hão / him

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hão is averb and himapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43781, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hão is recorded at frequency rank #24,033, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈɐ̃w̃/ [ˈɐ̃ʊ̯̃]. 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 43781, this pair ranks #21,810 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hão vs him

Shared letters: h. Private to "hão": oã. Private to "him": im.

"hão" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "him" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hão" for "him" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hão" is a verb and "him" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "hão" or "him" show up more?
"him" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,748 in our Portuguese list, against #24,033 for "hão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "hão" and "him". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hão" 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 #21,810 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hão" and "him" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hão vs hui". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #21,810 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