HaussevshousseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,425
“Hausse” frequency rank
#21,345
“housse” frequency rank
23770
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hausse housse
Definition Hausse. Sorte de couverture qu’on attache à la selle d’un cheval et qui couvre la croupe.

Where the eye mixes Hausse and housse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. Hausse and housse follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
Hausse
6 ch
housse

Visual trap between Hausse and housse

A purely visual mix-up. Hausse (\ˈhoːsə\) and housse (^((h aspiré))\us\) 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 a single letter - a in “Hausse” becomes o in “housse”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23770, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hausse is recorded at frequency rank #2,425, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈhoːsə\. housse is at rank #21,345, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\us\.

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 23770, this pair ranks #350,546 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Hausse vs housse

Shared letters: ehsu. Private to "Hausse": a. Private to "housse": o.

"Hausse" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "housse" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hausse ← ahusse · hasuse · hause · hauses · hhausse · huasse
  • housse ← hhousse · hosuse · houses · huosse · ohusse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Hausse" and "housse" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈhoːsə\ versus ^((h aspiré))\us\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Hausse" vs "housse" - which ranks higher?
"Hausse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,425 in our French list, against #21,345 for "housse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hausse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "housse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #350,546 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hausse" and "housse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hissé vs housse". 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 #350,546 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