Hummus or humus?
hummus is a noun meaning “A Levantine Arab dip made of chickpea paste with various additions, such as…”; humus is a noun meaning “A large group of natural organic compounds, found in the soil, formed from the…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) hummus is about 4.2 times as common as humus.
What is the difference between hummus and humus?
| hummus | humus | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun |
| Meaning | 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… | A large group of natural organic compounds, found in the soil, formed from the chemical and biological decomposition of plant and animal residues and from the… |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Forms | hummuses | humuses |
| Pronunciation | /ˈhʊməs/ /ˈhʌməs/ /ˈhuːməs/ | /ˈhjuːməs/ |
| In writing | 1.0 times per million words | about once in every 4 million words |
Sources: hummus and humus in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of hummus and humus
hummus
- 1
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
humus
- 1
A large group of natural organic compounds, found in the soil, formed from the chemical and biological decomposition of plant and animal residues and from the synthetic activity of microorganisms
- 2
Alternative spelling of hummus (“chickpea dip”)
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, hummus or humus?
hummus appears 1.0 times per million words; humus about once in every 4 million words.
hummus 1.0 times per million wordshumus about once in every 4 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search hummus vs humus?
“hummus vs humus” is searched about 480 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“humus vs hummus”, “hummus or humus”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.