HerrvshourConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#21,537
“Herr” frequency rank
#675
“hour” frequency rank
22212
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Herr hour
Definition A surname. A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes).

Letter map: Herr vs hour

Shared letters muted; letters that set Herr and hour apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
Herr
4 ch
hour

Grammar separator: Herr vs hour

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Herr is aname and houranoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22212, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Herr is recorded at frequency rank #21,537, classified as aname. hour is at rank #675, tagged as anoun, pronounced /aʊə/.

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 22212, this pair ranks #418,217 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Herr vs hour

Shared letters: hr. Private to "Herr": e. Private to "hour": ou.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Herrehrr · hherr · hrer
  • hourhhour · horu · hourr · huor · ohur

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Herr" and "hour" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Herr" is a name and "hour" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Herr" or "hour" show up more?
"hour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #675 in our English list, against #21,537 for "Herr". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "Herr" and "hour". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Herr" 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 #418,217 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Herr" and "hour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Herat vs Herr". 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 #418,217 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list