hocvshorchTell them apart

Quick tell: hoc is a unknown, horch is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hoc” is an unknown and “horch” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,937
“hoc” frequency rank
#41,904
“horch” frequency rank
59841
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hoc horch
Definition Nominativ Singular Neutrum des Pronomens hic 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs horchen

Letter map: hoc vs horch

Shared letters muted; letters that set hoc and horch apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. hoc runs 3 letters (CVC) against horch's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
hoc
5 ch
horch

Role in the sentence - hoc and horch

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hoc is anunknown and horchaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59841, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hoc is recorded at frequency rank #17,937, classified as anunknown, pronounced […]. horch is at rank #41,904, tagged as averb, pronounced [hɔʁç].

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 59841, this pair ranks #809,304 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hoc vs horch

Shared letters: cho. Private to "hoc": -. Private to "horch": r.

"hoc" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "horch" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • horch ← hhorch · hocrh · horcch · horchh · horhc · horrch · hroch · ohrch

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hoc" and "horch" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hoc" is an unknown and "horch" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "hoc" or "horch" show up more?
"hoc" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,937 in our German list, against #41,904 for "horch". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "hoc" and "horch". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hoc" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "horch" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #809,304 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hoc" and "horch" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Harsch vs horch". 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 #809,304 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list