horse
/hɔːs/
"horse" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“horse” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #1,793. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #1,793
- frequency rank, English
- 23,837
- “H” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work.
Corpus desk
Index EN-horse · horse · English
horse · rank #1,793 · 7 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,793
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 23,837
- PHOTO-FINISH Florida
Nearest frequency peer: Florida (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “horse”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- easier
easier
98,211 corpus weight
- fellow
fellow
98,210 corpus weight
- Florida
Florida
98,209 corpus weight
- horse
horse
98,208 corpus weight
- knowing
knowing
98,207 corpus weight
- liked
liked
98,206 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “horse” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | horse |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /hɔːs/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,793 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “horse” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around horse (IPA /hɔːs/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #1,793 among 23,837 “H” headwords. Wiktionary lists 21 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for horse, with forms such as "hhorse", "hores", and "horrse". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "hos", "hse", "host", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English hors, horse, ors, from Old English hors (“horse”), from Proto-West Germanic *hors, *hross, from Proto-Germanic *hrussą (“horse”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥sós (“vehicle”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱers- (“to run”). Doublet of car an… The correct English form is horse, spelled H-O-R-S-E.
Definition
- 1A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work.
- 2A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work.
- 3A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work.
- 4A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work.
- 5A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work.
- 6A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work.
- 7A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work.
- 8A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work.
- 9Equipment with legs.
- 10Equipment with legs.
- 11A type of equipment.
- 12A type of equipment.
- 13A type of equipment.
- 14A type of equipment.
- 15A mass of earthy matter, or rock of the same character as the wall rock, occurring in the course of a vein, as of coal or ore; hence, to take horse (said of a vein) is to divide into branches for a distance.
- 16An informal variant of basketball in which players match shots made by their opponent(s), each miss adding a letter to the word "horse", with 5 misses spelling the whole word and eliminating a player, until only the winner is left. Also HORSE, H-O-R-S-E or H.O.R.S.E. (see H-O-R-S-E on WikipediaWikipedia).
- 17The flesh of a horse as an item of cuisine.
- 18A prison guard who smuggles contraband in or out for prisoners.
- 19A translation or other illegitimate aid in study or examination.
- 20Horseplay; tomfoolery.
- 21A player who has been staked, i.e. another player has paid for their buy-in and claims a percentage of any winnings.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how horse appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
A cowboy's greatest friend is his horse.
She loved taming horses on Saturday.
Etymology
From Middle English hors, horse, ors, from Old English hors (“horse”), from Proto-West Germanic *hors, *hross, from Proto-Germanic *hrussą (“horse”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥sós (“vehicle”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱers- (“to run”). Doublet of car and carrus. Cognates Cognate with Scots horse (“horse”), West Frisian hoars (“horse”), Cimbrian ross (“horse”), Dutch hors, ros (“horse”), German Ross, Roß (“horse”), Danish and Norwegian Nynorsk hors (“horse, mare”), Faroese hors, ross (“horse”), Icelandic hross (“horse”), Swedish russ (“horse”); also Cornish karr (“car”), Welsh car (“car; cart, wagon”), Latin currus (“car, chariot; wagon, wain”), Ancient Greek ἐπίκουρος (epíkouros, “aiding, assisting; defending; ally, helper; hireling”), Tocharian A kursär (“vehicle; mile”), Tocharian B kwarsär (“course; path”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- hhorse
- hores
- horrse
- horsse
- hosre
- hrose
- ohrse
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of horse - 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.
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "horse", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.