heartvsheureConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#15,642
“heart” frequency rank
#346
“heure” frequency rank
15988
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heart heure
Definition Cœur, organe vital. Unité de mesure du temps, compatible avec le Système international, dérivée de la seconde, dont le symbole est h. 1 heure = 60 minutes = 3600 secondes.

Where the eye mixes heart and heure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. heart (CVVCC) and heure (CVVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
heart
5 ch
heure

Visual trap between heart and heure

A purely visual mix-up. heart ([hɑːt]) and heure (^((h muet))\œʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15988, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heart is recorded at frequency rank #15,642, classified as anoun, pronounced [hɑːt]. heure is at rank #346, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h muet))\œʁ\.

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 15988, this pair ranks #389,912 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of heart vs heure

Shared letters: ehr. Private to "heart": at. Private to "heure": u.

"heart" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "heure" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heart ← ehart · haert · hearrt · heartt · heatr · herat · hheart
  • heure ← ehure · herue · heuer · heurre · hheure · huere

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "heart" and "heure" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([hɑːt] versus ^((h muet))\œʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "heart" or "heure" show up more?
"heure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #346 in our French list, against #15,642 for "heart". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "heart" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "heure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #389,912 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heart" and "heure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heart vs heurt". 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 #389,912 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