Which to use
“heure” and “heures” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #346
- “heure” frequency rank
- #347
- “heures” frequency rank
- 693
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | heure | heures |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | 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. | Heures canoniales. |
Same sound, different letters: heure vs heures
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - heure and heures
This is the hard kind. heure and heures are pronounced identically (^((h muet))\œʁ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “heure” sits inside “heures”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 693, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
heure is recorded at frequency rank #346, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h muet))\œʁ\. 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 693, this pair ranks #439,268 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of heure vs heures
Shared letters: ehru. Private to "heure": -. Private to "heures": s.
"heure" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "heures" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "heure" and "heures" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "heure" or "heures"?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "heure" / "heures". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "heure" 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 #439,268 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "heure" and "heures" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hedge vs heure". 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 #439,268 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.