honourable

adj

"honourable" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“honourable” has 15 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #11,722. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#11,722
frequency rank, English
2,646
“H” headwords
15
tracked misspellings
2
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Standard spelling of honorable.

Corpus desk

Index EN-honourable · honourable · English

honourable · rank #11,722 · 15 variants · 2 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #11,722
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-LOW 2 pairs
  • VAR-HIGH 15 variants
  • BOOK-MID 2,646
  • PHOTO-FINISH holt

Nearest frequency peer: holt (-1 rank slots)

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Rank peers near misspelling magnet “honourable”

Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword

corpus weight

What this shows “honourable” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

honourable vs honorable
90% similar
honourable vs honorably
80% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for honourable
PropertyValue
Headwordhonourable
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdjective
Letters10
Frequency rank#11,722
Misspellings tracked15
Confusable pairs2
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “honourable”

This scale runs from the tiny cluster of words that carry ordinary speech (left) to the long tail of words almost nobody reaches for (right).honourablelands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

The axis is logarithmic, with each marked tick roughly ten times rarer than the last. Same rarity band neighbours include “holt” (#11,721), “illnesses” (#11,723), “highlighting” (#11,720). Among 2,646 “H” headwords, “honourable” is #11,722. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 15 spelling variants around honourable, anadjective. Corpus frequency is #11,722 among 2,646 “H” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Standard spelling of honorable.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 15 likely wrong-spelling variants for honourable, with forms such as "hhonourable", "hnoourable", and "honnourable". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 2 confusable-pair relationships, "honorable", "honorably", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English honourable, from Old French honorable, honurable, from Latin honōrābilis, from honōrō (“I honour”); cognate with Italian onorabile, Spanish honorable. By surface analysis, honour + -able. In this sense, largely displaced Old English ārfæst. The correct English form is honourable, spelled H-O-N-O-U-R-A-B-L-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Standard spelling of honorable.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how honourable appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. It was aptly said by Newton that "whatever is not deduced from facts must be regarded as hypothesis," but hypothesis appears to us a title too honourable for the crude guessings to which we allude.
  2. The days of steam on the railways of Kent are now indeed numbered, and when stage two of the electrification is completed through Tonbridge to Ashford, Folkestone and Dover a long and honourable chapter in transport will be virtually closed.

Etymology

From Middle English honourable, from Old French honorable, honurable, from Latin honōrābilis, from honōrō (“I honour”); cognate with Italian onorabile, Spanish honorable. By surface analysis, honour + -able. In this sense, largely displaced Old English ārfæst.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • hhonourable
  • hnoourable
  • honnourable
  • honoruable
  • honouarble
  • honourabble
  • honourabel
  • honourablle
  • honouralbe
  • honourbale
  • honourible
  • honourrable
  • honuorable
  • hoonurable
  • ohnourable

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of honourable - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

hhonourable1hnoourable2honnourable1honoruable2honouarble2honourabble1honourabel2honourablle1
Edit distance from "honourable"

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "honourable"?
"honourable" is spelled H-O-N-O-U-R-A-B-L-E.
What does "honourable" mean?
As an adjective, "honourable" means: Standard spelling of honorable.
What words are commonly confused with "honourable"?
"honourable" is commonly confused with "honorable", "honorably". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What is the origin of the word "honourable"?
From Middle English honourable, from Old French honorable, honurable, from Latin honōrābilis, from honōrō (“I honour”); cognate with Italian onorabile, Spanish honorable. By surface analysis, honour + -able. In this sense, largely displaced Old En... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "honourable", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (15 here; floor ≥5).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list