horavshoyTell them apart

Which to use

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

#49,403
“hora” frequency rank
#26,117
“hoy” frequency rank
75520
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hora hoy
Definition A circle dance popular in the Balkans, Israel and Yiddish culture worldwide. A small coaster vessel, usually sloop-rigged, used in conveying passengers and goods, or as a tender to larger vessels in port.

Letter map: hora vs hoy

Shared letters muted; letters that set hora and hoy apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. hora runs 4 letters (CVCV) against hoy's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
hora
3 ch
hoy

Corpus notes: hora and hoy

hora and hoy 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 differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75520, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hora is recorded at frequency rank #49,403, classified as anoun. hoy is at rank #26,117, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɔɪ/.

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 75520, this pair ranks #32,866 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hora vs hoy

Shared letters: ho. Private to "hora": ar. Private to "hoy": y.

"hora" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "hoy" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hora ← hhora · hoar · horra · hroa · ohra

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hora" for "hoy" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "hora" vs "hoy" - which ranks higher?
"hoy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,117 in our English list, against #49,403 for "hora". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "hora" and "hoy".

  • Full dictionary entry for "hora" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hoy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,866 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hora" and "hoy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hoke vs hora". 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 #32,866 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