horsesvshouseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,306
“horses” frequency rank
#186
“house” frequency rank
3492
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature horses house
Definition plural of horse A structure built or serving as an abode of human beings.

Where the eye mixes horses and house

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
horses
5 ch
house

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. horses (/ˈhoɹsɪz/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3492, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

horses is recorded at frequency rank #3,306, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhoɹsɪz/. 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 3492, this pair ranks #521,954 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of horses vs house

Shared letters: ehos. Private to "horses": r. Private to "house": u.

"horses" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "house" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • horseshhorses · horess · horrses · horsess · horsses · hosres · hroses · ohrses
  • househhouse · hosue · houes · housse · huose · ohuse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "horses" and "house" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈhoɹsɪz/ versus /haʊs/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "horses" or "house"?
"house" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #186 in our English list, against #3,306 for "horses". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "horses" and "house". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "horses" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "house" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #521,954 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "horses" and "house" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "horses vs Hosea". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list