heurtvshoursTell them apart

Which to use

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

#48,578
“heurt” frequency rank
#31,541
“hours” frequency rank
80119
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heurt hours
Definition Coup donné en heurtant contre quelque chose. Chevalets qui soutiennent l’arbre sur lequel travaillent des scieurs de long.

Where the eye mixes heurt and hours

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

5 ch
heurt
5 ch
hours

Look-alike desk: heurt vs hours

A purely visual mix-up. heurt (^((h aspiré))\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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80119, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heurt is recorded at frequency rank #48,578, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\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 80119, this pair ranks #21,696 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of heurt vs hours

Shared letters: hru. Private to "heurt": et. Private to "hours": os.

"heurt" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "hours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heurtehurt · herut · heurrt · heurtt · heutr · hheurt · huert
  • hourshhours · hourrs · hourss · housr · huors · ohurs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "heurt" and "hours" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (^((h aspiré))\œʁ\ versus ^((h aspiré))\uʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "heurt" vs "hours" - which ranks higher?
"hours" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,541 in our French list, against #48,578 for "heurt". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "heurt" 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 #21,696 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heurt" and "hours" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heurt vs hurt". 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 #21,696 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