hoppingvshousingWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#16,490
“hopping” frequency rank
#1,759
“housing” frequency rank
18249
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hopping housing
Definition hop picking, the practice of picking hops; for Londoners a holiday period working in the hop gardens of Kent. The activity of enclosing something or providing a residence for someone.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set hopping and housing apart are highlighted. They share 5 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

7 ch
hopping
7 ch
housing

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

hopping and housing 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 18249, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hopping is recorded at frequency rank #16,490, classified as anoun. housing is at rank #1,759, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈhaʊzɪŋ/.

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 18249, this pair ranks #446,135 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hopping vs housing

Shared letters: ghino. Private to "hopping": p. Private to "housing": su.

"hopping" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "housing" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hoppinghhopping · hopipng · hoppign · hoppingg · hoppinng · hoppnig · hpoping · ohpping
  • housinghhousing · hosuing · houisng · housign · housingg · housinng · housnig · houssing

Frequency comparison

hopping#16,490
housing#1,759

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hopping" and "housing" be used interchangeably?
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.
Which is more common, "hopping" or "housing"?
"housing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,759 in our English list, against #16,490 for "hopping". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering hopping vs housing

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Read both glosses above and match the meaning you intend, only context separates this pair.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “hopping” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list