horvshoverWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: hor is a pronoun, hover is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hor” is a pronoun and “hover” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,433
“hor” frequency rank
#20,667
“hover” frequency rank
66100
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hor hover
Definition her To keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air.

Where the eye mixes hor and hover

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
hor
5 ch
hover

Why the eye confuses hor with hover

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hor is /høː/ while hover is /ˈhɒvə/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66100, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hor is recorded at frequency rank #45,433, classified as apron, pronounced /høː/. hover is at rank #20,667, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈhɒvə/.

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 66100, this pair ranks #69,612 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hor vs hover

Shared letters: hor. Private to "hor": -. Private to "hover": ev.

"hor" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hover" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hoverhhover · hoevr · hoverr · hovre · hovver · hvoer · ohver

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hor" for "hover" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hor" is a pronoun and "hover" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "hor" or "hover" show up more?
"hover" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,667 in our English list, against #45,433 for "hor". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hor" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hover" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #69,612 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hor" and "hover" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hoke vs hor". 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 #69,612 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