hisvshitsWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#8,209
“his” frequency rank
#11,080
“hits” frequency rank
19289
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature his hits
Definition pronome do caso possessivo da terceira pessoa masculina do singular, dele. plural de hit

Letter map: his vs hits

Shared letters muted; letters that set his and hits apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. his runs 3 letters (CVC) against hits's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
his
4 ch
hits

Role in the sentence - his and hits

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: his is apronoun and hitsanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19289, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

his is recorded at frequency rank #8,209, classified as apron. hits is at rank #11,080, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɪts.

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 19289, this pair ranks #51,470 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of his vs hits

Shared letters: his. Private to "his": -. Private to "hits": t.

"his" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hits" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hits ← hhits · hist · hitss · hitts · htis · ihts

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "his" and "hits" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "his" is a pronoun and "hits" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "his" or "hits" show up more?
"his" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,209 in our Portuguese list, against #11,080 for "hits". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "his" and "hits".

  • Full dictionary entry for "his" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hits" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #51,470 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "his" and "hits" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "his 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 #51,470 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