Which to use
“hoarse” is an adjective and “house” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #43,691
- “hoarse” frequency rank
- #186
- “house” frequency rank
- 43877
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hoarse | house |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having a dry, harsh tone to the voice, as a result of a sore throat, age, emotion, etc. | A structure built or serving as an abode of human beings. |
Where the eye mixes hoarse and house
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: hoarse vs house
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hoarse is /hɔːs/ while house is /haʊs/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43877, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hoarse is recorded at frequency rank #43,691, classified as anadj, pronounced /hɔːs/. house is at rank #186, tagged as anoun, pronounced /haʊs/.
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 43877, this pair ranks #235,843 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of hoarse vs house
Shared letters: ehos. Private to "hoarse": ar. Private to "house": u.
"hoarse" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "house" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "hoarse" for "house" ever safe?
Frequency check: "hoarse" vs "house" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "hoarse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "house" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #235,843 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hoarse" and "house" 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 #235,843 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.