Which to use
“hour” and “humour” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #675
- “hour” frequency rank
- #9,189
- “humour” frequency rank
- 9864
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hour | humour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes). | The quality of being amusing, comical, funny. |
Where the eye mixes hour and humour
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. hour runs 4 letters (CVVC) against humour's 6 (CVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: hour vs humour
A purely visual mix-up. hour (/aʊə/) and humour (/ˈhjuː.mə(ɹ)/) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9864, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hour is recorded at frequency rank #675, classified as anoun, pronounced /aʊə/. humour is at rank #9,189, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈhjuː.mə(ɹ)/.
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 9864, this pair ranks #495,203 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hour vs humour
Shared letters: horu. Private to "hour": -. Private to "humour": m.
"hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "humour" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "hour" and "humour" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "hour" or "humour"?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "hour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "humour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #495,203 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hour" and "humour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "humbug vs humour". 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 #495,203 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.