hoppervshornerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“hopper” and “horner” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#15,425
“hopper” frequency rank
#27,500
“horner” frequency rank
42925
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hopper horner
Definition One who or that which hops. Someone who works or deals in (animal) horn or horns.

Letter map: hopper vs horner

Shared letters muted; letters that set hopper and horner apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. hopper and horner follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
hopper
6 ch
horner

Corpus notes: hopper and horner

hopper and horner are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42925, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hopper is recorded at frequency rank #15,425, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhɒp.ə(ɹ)/. horner is at rank #27,500, tagged as anoun.

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 42925, this pair ranks #244,858 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hopper vs horner

Shared letters: ehor. Private to "hopper": p. Private to "horner": n.

"hopper" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "horner" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hopper ← hhopper · hopepr · hoper · hopperr · hoppre · hpoper · ohpper
  • horner ← hhorner · honrer · horenr · hornerr · hornner · hornre · horrner · hroner

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hopper" for "horner" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "hopper" vs "horner" - which ranks higher?
"hopper" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,425 in our English list, against #27,500 for "horner". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "hopper" vs "horner" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hopper" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "horner" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #244,858 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hopper" and "horner" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "holier vs horner". 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 #244,858 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