Which to use
“hummus” and “humour” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #28,952
- “hummus” frequency rank
- #9,189
- “humour” frequency rank
- 38141
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hummus | humour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A Levantine Arab dip made of chickpea paste with various additions, such as olive oil, fresh garlic, lemon juice, and tahini, often eaten with pitta bread, or as a meze. | The quality of being amusing, comical, funny. |
Where the eye mixes hummus and humour
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. hummus (CVCCVC) and humour (CVCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between hummus and humour
A purely visual mix-up. hummus (/ˈhʊməs/) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38141, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hummus is recorded at frequency rank #28,952, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhʊməs/. 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 38141, this pair ranks #288,478 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of hummus vs humour
Shared letters: hmu. Private to "hummus": s. Private to "humour": or.
"hummus" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "humour" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "hummus" and "humour" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "hummus" or "humour"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "hummus" and "humour" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "hummus" 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 #288,478 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hummus" and "humour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hummus vs humps". 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 #288,478 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.