humour
/ˈhjuː.mə(ɹ)/
"humour" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“humour” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #9,189 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #9,189
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The quality of being amusing, comical, funny.
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 | humour |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈhjuː.mə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #9,189 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “humour” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for humour is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈhjuː.mə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #9,189 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for humour, with forms such as "hhumour", "hmuour", and "hummour". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "hour", "humor", "honour", 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 humour, from Old French humor, humour, from Latin hūmor, correctly ūmor (“liquid”), from hūmeō, correctly ūmeō (“to be moist”). The h in these words, which was silent in late Classical Latin, is folk etymological, due to the erroneous as… The correct English form is humour, spelled H-U-M-O-U-R.
Definition
- 1The quality of being amusing, comical, funny.
- 2A mood, especially a bad mood; a temporary state of mind or disposition brought upon by an event; an abrupt illogical inclination or whim.
- 3Any of the fluids in an animal body, especially the four "cardinal humours" of blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm that were believed to control the health and mood of the human body.
- 4Either of the two regions of liquid within the eyeball, the aqueous humour and vitreous humour.
- 5Moist vapour, moisture.
Etymology
From Middle English humour, from Old French humor, humour, from Latin hūmor, correctly ūmor (“liquid”), from hūmeō, correctly ūmeō (“to be moist”). The h in these words, which was silent in late Classical Latin, is folk etymological, due to the erroneous association with the word humus (“soil”). The shift in meaning "liquid" > "mood" is attributed to the classical system of physiology, where human behaviour is regulated by four bodily humours (fluids). The sense "mood" gave rise to the verb sense "to give in to someone's mood or whim" and, by narrowing of meaning, the sense "wit".
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hhumour,hmuour,hummour,humoru,humourr,humuor,huomur,uhmour
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of humour - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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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Using “humour”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-U-M-O-U-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈhjuː.mə(ɹ)/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “hour” - see the side-by-side comparison. humour vs hour
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.