helpvshemTell them apart

Quick tell: help is a noun, hem is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“help” is a noun and “hem” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,856
“help” frequency rank
#27,124
“hem” frequency rank
36980
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature help hem
Definition ajuda, socorro expressa incompreensão, não entendimento, simultaneamente comunicando àquele ao qual se dirige, que elucide o sentido, o nexo, que dê clareza ou que melhor se fale ou expresse o que se acabou de comunicar

Letter map: help vs hem

Shared letters muted; letters that set help and hem apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
help
3 ch
hem

Role in the sentence - help and hem

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: help is anoun and hemanintj. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36980, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

help is recorded at frequency rank #9,856, classified as anoun. hem is at rank #27,124, tagged as anintj, pronounced /ẽɲ/.

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 36980, this pair ranks #29,734 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of help vs hem

Shared letters: eh. Private to "help": lp. Private to "hem": m.

"help" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hem" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • helpehlp · hellp · helpp · hepl · hhelp · hlep

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "help" and "hem" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "help" is a noun and "hem" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "help" vs "hem" - which ranks higher?
"help" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,856 in our Portuguese list, against #27,124 for "hem". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "help" and "hem".

  • Full dictionary entry for "help" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hem" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #29,734 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "help" and "hem" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hem vs hui". 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 #29,734 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