hourvshunWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#675
“hour” frequency rank
#17,634
“hun” frequency rank
18309
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hour hun
Definition A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes). Alternative spelling of hon (“affectionate abbreviation of honey”).

Where the eye mixes hour and hun

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hour
3 ch
hun

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. hour (/aʊə/) and hun (/hʌn/) 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 18309, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hour is recorded at frequency rank #675, classified as anoun, pronounced /aʊə/. hun is at rank #17,634, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hʌn/.

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 18309, this pair ranks #445,747 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hour vs hun

Shared letters: hu. Private to "hour": or. Private to "hun": n.

"hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "hun" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hourhhour · horu · hourr · huor · ohur

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hour" and "hun" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/aʊə/ versus /hʌn/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "hour" or "hun"?
"hour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #675 in our English list, against #17,634 for "hun". 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