hemvshimTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#27,124
“hem” frequency rank
#19,748
“him” frequency rank
46872
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Letter map: hem vs him

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

3 ch
hem
3 ch
him

Role in the sentence - hem and him

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hem is anintj and himapronoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “hem” becomes i in “him”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46872, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hem is recorded at frequency rank #27,124, classified as anintj, pronounced /ẽɲ/. 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 46872, this pair ranks #18,428 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hem vs him

Shared letters: hm. Private to "hem": e. Private to "him": i.

"hem" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "him" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hem" for "him" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hem" is an intj and "him" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "hem" vs "him" - which ranks higher?
"him" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,748 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "hem" 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 #18,428 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hem" and "him" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hem vs hui". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #18,428 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