hess
\hɛs\
The verdict
“hess” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #28,193) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #28,193
- frequency rank, French
- 1,969
- “H” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - crise, misère, galère.
Corpus desk
Index FR-hess · hess · French
hess · rank #28,193 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #28,193
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,969
- PHOTO-FINISH holy
Nearest frequency peer: holy (+1 rank slots)
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.
Voisins de fréquence du confusable « hess »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- gérez
gérez
71,812 corpus weight
- gênent
gênent
71,811 corpus weight
- HADOPI
HADOPI
71,810 corpus weight
- hess
hess
71,808 corpus weight
- holy
holy
71,807 corpus weight
- honorifique
honorifique
71,806 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « hess » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
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 | hess |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \hɛs\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #28,193 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « hess »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for hess is neighbouring look-alikes ("Hs", "hey", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \hɛs\. Frequency #28,193 among 1,969 “H” headwords. Gloss: "crise, misère, galère.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for hess, with forms such as "ehss", "hes", and "hhess". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Hs", "hey", "Heu", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is hess, spelled H-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1crise, misère, galère.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how hess appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
À bas la hess !
Taha nous explique l’expression “C’est la hess”
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- ehss
- hes
- hhess
- hses
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of hess - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "hess", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).