haltesvshôtesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“haltes” and “hôtes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#47,932
“haltes” frequency rank
#8,560
“hôtes” frequency rank
56492
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature haltes hôtes
Definition Pluriel de halte. Pluriel de hôte.

Where the eye mixes haltes and hôtes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. haltes runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against hôtes's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
haltes
5 ch
hôtes

Why the eye confuses haltes with hôtes

A purely visual mix-up. haltes (\alt\) and hôtes (^((h muet))\ot\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56492, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

haltes is recorded at frequency rank #47,932, classified as anoun, pronounced \alt\. hôtes is at rank #8,560, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h muet))\ot\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 56492, this pair ranks #120,791 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of haltes vs hôtes

Shared letters: ehst. Private to "haltes": al. Private to "hôtes": ô.

"haltes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "hôtes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • haltes ← ahltes · halets · halltes · haltess · haltse · halttes · hatles · hhaltes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "haltes" for "hôtes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\alt\ versus ^((h muet))\ot\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "haltes" or "hôtes" show up more?
"hôtes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,560 in our French list, against #47,932 for "haltes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "haltes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hôtes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #120,791 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "haltes" and "hôtes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "haltes vs haters". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #120,791 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list