Which to use
“hope” is a verb and “hopes” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #346
- “hope” frequency rank
- #3,630
- “hopes” frequency rank
- 3976
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hope | hopes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To want (something) to happen, with a sense of expectation that it might [with that (+ clause); or (informal) with clause; or with so or (negative) not]. | plural of hope |
Where the eye mixes hope and hopes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hope is /həʊp/ while hopes is /hoʊps/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “hope” sits inside “hopes”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3976, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hope is recorded at frequency rank #346, classified as averb, pronounced /həʊp/. hopes is at rank #3,630, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hoʊps/.
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 3976, this pair ranks #520,384 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hope vs hopes
Shared letters: ehop. Private to "hope": -. Private to "hopes": s.
"hope" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "hopes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC