hermèsvsheuresTell them apart

Which to use

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

#17,971
“hermès” frequency rank
#347
“heures” frequency rank
18318
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hermès heures
Definition Pilier portant une tête de Hermès. Heures canoniales.

Where the eye mixes hermès and heures

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
hermès
6 ch
heures

Why the eye confuses hermès with heures

A purely visual mix-up. hermès (\ɛʁ.mɛs\) and heures (^((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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18318, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hermès is recorded at frequency rank #17,971, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛʁ.mɛs\. heures is at rank #347, 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 18318, this pair ranks #378,931 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hermès vs heures

Shared letters: ehrs. Private to "hermès": . Private to "heures": u.

"hermès" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "heures" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heuresehures · herues · heuers · heuress · heurres · heurse · hheures · hueres

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "hermès" and "heures" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɛʁ.mɛs\ 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 "hermès" or "heures" show up more?
"heures" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #347 in our French list, against #17,971 for "hermès". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "hermès" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "heures" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #378,931 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hermès" and "heures" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hermès vs hêtres". 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 #378,931 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