hotsvshourWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#37,029
“hots” frequency rank
#675
“hour” frequency rank
37704
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hots hour
Definition A condition of physical attraction toward (for) someone. A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes).

Letter map: hots vs hour

Shared letters muted; letters that set hots and hour apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
hots
4 ch
hour

Corpus notes: hots and hour

hots and hour 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37704, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hots is recorded at frequency rank #37,029, classified as anoun. hour is at rank #675, tagged as anoun, pronounced /aʊə/.

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 37704, this pair ranks #292,253 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hots vs hour

Shared letters: ho. Private to "hots": st. Private to "hour": ru.

"hots" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hotshhots · hotts · htos · ohts
  • hourhhour · horu · hourr · huor · ohur

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hots" and "hour" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "hots" vs "hour" - which ranks higher?
"hour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #675 in our English list, against #37,029 for "hots". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "hots" and "hour".

  • Full dictionary entry for "hots" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #292,253 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hots" and "hour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hoke vs hots". 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 #292,253 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