Which to use
“hoe” and “house” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #20,954
- “hoe” frequency rank
- #186
- “house” frequency rank
- 21140
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hoe | house |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Any of various tools for scraping, scratching, digging, or stirring soil or other materials. | A structure built or serving as an abode of human beings. |
Where the eye mixes hoe and house
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. hoe (/həʊ/) and house (/haʊs/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21140, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hoe is recorded at frequency rank #20,954, classified as anoun, pronounced /həʊ/. 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 21140, this pair ranks #426,087 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hoe vs house
Shared letters: eho. Private to "hoe": -. Private to "house": su.
"hoe" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "house" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- house ← hhouse · hosue · houes · housse · huose · ohuse