Which to use
“horse” and “house” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,793
- “horse” frequency rank
- #186
- “house” frequency rank
- 1979
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | horse | house |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work. | A structure built or serving as an abode of human beings. |
Where the eye mixes horse and house
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. horse (/hɔːs/) and house (/haʊs/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - r in “horse” becomes u in “house”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1979, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
horse is recorded at frequency rank #1,793, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɔːs/. house is at rank #186, tagged as anoun, pronounced /haʊs/.
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 1979, this pair ranks #526,138 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of horse vs house
Shared letters: ehos. Private to "horse": r. Private to "house": u.
"horse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "house" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV