heurvshoursConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#35,538
“heur” frequency rank
#31,541
“hours” frequency rank
67079
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heur hours
Definition Bonne fortune, chance heureuse. Chevalets qui soutiennent l’arbre sur lequel travaillent des scieurs de long.

Where the eye mixes heur and hours

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. heur runs 4 letters (CVVC) against hours's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
heur
5 ch
hours

Visual trap between heur and hours

A purely visual mix-up. heur (^((h muet))\œʁ\) and hours (^((h aspiré))\uʁ\) 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 67079, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heur is recorded at frequency rank #35,538, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h muet))\œʁ\. hours is at rank #31,541, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\uʁ\.

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 67079, this pair ranks #64,997 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of heur vs hours

Shared letters: hru. Private to "heur": e. Private to "hours": os.

"heur" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "hours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heur ← ehur · heru · heurr · hheur
  • hours ← hhours · hourrs · hourss · housr · huors · ohurs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "heur" and "hours" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (^((h muet))\œʁ\ versus ^((h aspiré))\uʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "heur" or "hours"?
"hours" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,541 in our French list, against #35,538 for "heur". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "heur" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hours" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,997 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heur" and "hours" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heur 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 #64,997 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