Which to use
“hour” and “hours” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #675
- “hour” frequency rank
- #388
- “hours” frequency rank
- 1063
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hour | hours |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes). | plural of hour |
Where the eye mixes hour and hours
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. hour (/aʊə/) and hours (/ˈaʊə(ɹ)z/) 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 extra letter(s) - “hour” sits inside “hours”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1063, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hour is recorded at frequency rank #675, classified as anoun, pronounced /aʊə/. hours is at rank #388, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈaʊə(ɹ)z/.
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 1063, this pair ranks #528,185 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hour vs hours
Shared letters: horu. Private to "hour": -. Private to "hours": s.
"hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "hours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC