hor vs hows, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#45,433
“hor” frequency rank: #38,890
“hows” frequency rank: 84323
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	hor	hows
Definition	her	plural of how

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set hor and hows apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

3 ch

hor

4 ch

hows

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hor is /høː/ while hows is /haʊz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84323, 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/. hows is at rank #38,890, tagged as anoun, 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 84323, this pair ranks #12,285 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hor vs hows

Shared letters: ho. Private to "hor": r. Private to "hows": sw.

"hor" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "hows" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

hows ← hhows · hosw · howss · howws · ohws

Frequency comparison

hor#45,433

hows#38,890

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hor" and "hows" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hor" is a pronoun and "hows" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "hor" or "hows"?

"hows" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,890 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.

Remembering hor vs hows

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a pronoun, it's “hor”; for a noun, it's “hows”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “hor” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable