Which to use
“homes” is a noun and “how's” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,074
- “homes” frequency rank
- #7,699
- “how's” frequency rank
- 9773
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | homes | how's |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of home | Contraction of how + is. |
Where the eye mixes homes and how's
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: homes is /həʊmz/ while how's is /haʊz/. 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 contraction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9773, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
homes is recorded at frequency rank #2,074, classified as anoun, pronounced /həʊmz/. how's is at rank #7,699, tagged as acontraction, pronounced /haʊz/.
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 9773, this pair ranks #495,669 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of homes vs how's
Shared letters: hos. Private to "homes": em. Private to "how's": w.
"homes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "how's" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- homes ← hhomes · hmoes · hoems · homess · hommes · homse · ohmes