heurevshouseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#346
“heure” frequency rank
#5,569
“house” frequency rank
5915
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heure house
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. Genre musical composé, basiquement, d’un rythme minimal, d’une ligne de basse funky, et de voix.

Where the eye mixes heure and house

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
heure
5 ch
house

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. heure (^((h muet))\œʁ\) and house (^((h aspiré))\aws\) 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 5915, 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\. house is at rank #5,569, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\aws\.

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 5915, this pair ranks #427,685 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of heure vs house

Shared letters: ehu. Private to "heure": r. Private to "house": os.

"heure" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "house" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heureehure · herue · heuer · heurre · hheure · huere
  • househhouse · hosue · houes · huose · ohuse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "heure" and "house" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (^((h muet))\œʁ\ versus ^((h aspiré))\aws\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "heure" or "house"?
"heure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #346 in our French list, against #5,569 for "house". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list