homagevshumaneWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: homage is a noun, humane is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“homage” is a noun and “humane” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,788
“homage” frequency rank
#12,619
“humane” frequency rank
25407
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature homage humane
Definition A demonstration of respect, as towards a person after his or her retirement or death. Having or showing concern for the pain or suffering of another; compassionate.

Where the eye mixes homage and humane

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
homage
6 ch
humane

Look-alike desk: homage vs humane

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: homage is /ˈhɒmɪd͡ʒ/ while humane is /hjuːˈmeɪn/. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25407, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

homage is recorded at frequency rank #12,788, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhɒmɪd͡ʒ/. humane is at rank #12,619, tagged as anadj, pronounced /hjuːˈmeɪn/.

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 25407, this pair ranks #394,501 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of homage vs humane

Shared letters: aehm. Private to "homage": go. Private to "humane": nu.

"homage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "humane" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • homagehhomage · hmoage · hoamge · homaeg · homagge · homgae · hommage · ohmage
  • humanehhumane · hmuane · huamne · humaen · humanne · hummane · humnae · uhmane

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "homage" for "humane" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "homage" is a noun and "humane" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "homage" or "humane" show up more?
"humane" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,619 in our English list, against #12,788 for "homage". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "homage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "humane" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #394,501 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "homage" and "humane" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hoare vs homage". 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 #394,501 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