heuresvsheurtsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#347
“heures” frequency rank
#23,574
“heurts” frequency rank
23921
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heures heurts
Definition Heures canoniales. Pluriel de heurt.

Where the eye mixes heures and heurts

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. heures (CVVCVC) and heurts (CVVCCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
heures
6 ch
heurts

Why the eye confuses heures with heurts

A purely visual mix-up. heures (^((h muet))\œʁ\) 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 a single letter - e in “heures” becomes t in “heurts”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23921, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heures is recorded at frequency rank #347, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h muet))\œʁ\. 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 23921, this pair ranks #349,688 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of heures vs heurts

Shared letters: ehrsu. Private to "heures": -. Private to "heurts": t.

"heures" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "heurts" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heures ← ehures · herues · heuers · heuress · heurres · heurse · hheures · hueres
  • heurts ← ehurts · heruts · heurrts · heurst · heurtss · heurtts · heutrs · hheurts

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "heures" for "heurts" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (^((h muet))\œʁ\ versus \œʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "heures" vs "heurts" - which ranks higher?
"heures" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #347 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "heures" 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 #349,688 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heures" 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 #349,688 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