Hsu
"hsu" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Hsu” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #30,084) as a proper noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #30,084
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A surname.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hsu · Hsu · English
Hsu · rank #30,084 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #30,084
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH housemate
Nearest frequency peer: housemate (-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 neighbours of confusable “Hsu”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- Hera
Hera
69,920 corpus weight
- Hobson
Hobson
69,919 corpus weight
- housemate
housemate
69,918 corpus weight
- Hsu
Hsu
69,917 corpus weight
- Humphreys
Humphreys
69,916 corpus weight
- Icarus
Icarus
69,914 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “Hsu” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | Hsu |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #30,084 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “Hsu”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for Hsu is neighbouring look-alikes ("Hu", "hv", …), not just typos; it is aproper noun. Frequency #30,084 among 2,646 “H” headwords. Gloss: "A surname.".
Hsu has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Hu", "hv", "huh", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Mandarin 許／许 (Xǔ) or 徐 (Xú) Wade–Giles romanization: Hsü. The correct English form is Hsu, spelled H-S-U.
Definition
- 1A surname.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how Hsu appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
In 1953, station director Cheng Tsung-yuan used timber from trees blown down in high winds to construct a hexagonal hall that would represent Liouguei. It was named Tsu Ching Hall, after Hsu Ching-chong, first agriculture director of the Taiwanese provincial government.
Etymology
Borrowed from Mandarin 許／许 (Xǔ) or 徐 (Xú) Wade–Giles romanization: Hsü.
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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "Hsu", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).