hortvshourTell them apart

Quick tell: hort is a verb, hour is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hort” is a verb and “hour” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,929
“hort” frequency rank
#18,576
“hour” frequency rank
37505
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hort hour
Definition 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs horten Stunde

Where the eye mixes hort and hour

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hort
4 ch
hour

Visual trap between hort and hour

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hort is [hɔʁt] while hour is [aʊə(ɹ)]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37505, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hort is recorded at frequency rank #18,929, classified as averb, pronounced [hɔʁt]. hour is at rank #18,576, tagged as anoun, pronounced [aʊə(ɹ)].

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 37505, this pair ranks #1,588,442 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hort vs hour

Shared letters: hor. Private to "hort": t. Private to "hour": u.

"hort" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • horthhort · horrt · hortt · hotr · hrot · ohrt
  • hourhhour · horu · hourr · huor · ohur

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hort" and "hour" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hort" is a verb and "hour" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "hort" or "hour" show up more?
"hour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,576 in our German list, against #18,929 for "hort". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "hort" and "hour" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hort" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,588,442 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hort" and "hour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "höh vs hort". 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 #1,588,442 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