hourvsHsuWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: hour is a noun, Hsu is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hour” is a noun and “Hsu” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#675
“hour” frequency rank
#30,084
“Hsu” frequency rank
30759
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hour Hsu
Definition A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes). A surname.

Letter map: hour vs Hsu

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

4 ch
hour
3 ch
Hsu

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hour is anoun and Hsuaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30759, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hour is recorded at frequency rank #675, classified as anoun, pronounced /aʊə/. Hsu is at rank #30,084, tagged as aname.

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 30759, this pair ranks #351,801 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hour vs Hsu

Shared letters: hu. Private to "hour": or. Private to "Hsu": s.

"hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Hsu" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hourhhour · horu · hourr · huor · ohur

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hour" and "Hsu" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hour" is a noun and "Hsu" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hour" or "Hsu"?
"hour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #675 in our English list, against #30,084 for "Hsu". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list