hérosvsheurtsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,629
“héros” frequency rank
#23,574
“heurts” frequency rank
25203
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature héros heurts
Definition Nom donné par Homère aux hommes d’un courage et d’un mérite supérieur, favoris particuliers des dieux, et dans Hésiode à ceux qu’on disait fils d’un dieu et d’une mortelle ou d’une déesse et d’un mortel. Pluriel de heurt.

Where the eye mixes héros and heurts

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. héros runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against heurts's 6 (CVVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
héros
6 ch
heurts

Visual trap between héros and heurts

A purely visual mix-up. héros (^((h aspiré))\e.ʁo\) and heurts (\œʁ\) 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 25203, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

héros is recorded at frequency rank #1,629, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\e.ʁo\. heurts is at rank #23,574, tagged as anoun, pronounced \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 25203, this pair ranks #342,208 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of héros vs heurts

Shared letters: hrs. Private to "héros": oé. Private to "heurts": etu.

"héros" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "heurts" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heurts ← ehurts · heruts · heurrts · heurst · heurtss · heurtts · heutrs · hheurts

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "héros" and "heurts" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (^((h aspiré))\e.ʁo\ versus \œʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "héros" or "heurts" show up more?
"héros" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,629 in our French list, against #23,574 for "heurts". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "héros" and "heurts" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "héros" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "heurts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #342,208 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "héros" and "heurts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heurt vs heurts". 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 #342,208 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