how
\ˈhaʊ\
The verdict
“how” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #10,887 in French word frequency and used as an adverb.
- #10,887
- frequency rank, French
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Comment, de quelle manière.
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 | how |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \ˈhaʊ\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #10,887 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “how” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for how is 3 letters long, classified as an adverb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ˈhaʊ\. Corpus data places it at rank #10,887 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for how in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "hp", "Hs", "hr", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is how, spelled H-O-W.
Definition
- 1Comment, de quelle manière.
- 2De quel degré.
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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Using “how”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is H-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ˈhaʊ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “hp” - see the side-by-side comparison. how vs hp
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French 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.