Which to use
“hearse” is a noun and “hoarse” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #37,023
- “hearse” frequency rank
- #43,691
- “hoarse” frequency rank
- 80714
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hearse | hoarse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A framework of wood or metal placed over the coffin or tomb of a deceased person, and covered with a pall; also, a temporary canopy bearing wax lights and set up in a church, under which the coffin was placed during the funeral ceremonies. | Having a dry, harsh tone to the voice, as a result of a sore throat, age, emotion, etc. |
Where the eye mixes hearse and hoarse
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. hearse and hoarse follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: hearse vs hoarse
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hearse is /hɜːs/ while hoarse is /hɔːs/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “hearse” becomes o in “hoarse”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80714, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hearse is recorded at frequency rank #37,023, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɜːs/. hoarse is at rank #43,691, tagged as anadj, pronounced /hɔːs/.
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 80714, this pair ranks #19,208 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of hearse vs hoarse
Shared letters: aehrs. Private to "hearse": -. Private to "hoarse": o.
"hearse" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "hoarse" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "hearse" and "hoarse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "hearse" or "hoarse" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "hearse" and "hoarse" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "hearse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hoarse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #19,208 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hearse" and "hoarse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hoare vs hoarse". 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 #19,208 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.