heurtsvshoursTell them apart

Which to use

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

#23,574
“heurts” frequency rank
#31,541
“hours” frequency rank
55115
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heurts hours
Definition Pluriel de heurt. Chevalets qui soutiennent l’arbre sur lequel travaillent des scieurs de long.

Where the eye mixes heurts and hours

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. heurts runs 6 letters (CVVCCC) against hours's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
heurts
5 ch
hours

Visual trap between heurts and hours

A purely visual mix-up. heurts (\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 55115, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heurts is recorded at frequency rank #23,574, classified as anoun, pronounced \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 55115, this pair ranks #129,581 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of heurts vs hours

Shared letters: hrsu. Private to "heurts": et. Private to "hours": o.

"heurts" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCC  ·  "hours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heurts ← ehurts · heruts · heurrts · heurst · heurtss · heurtts · heutrs · hheurts
  • hours ← hhours · hourrs · hourss · housr · huors · ohurs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "heurts" and "hours" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\œʁ\ versus ^((h aspiré))\uʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "heurts" vs "hours" - which ranks higher?
"heurts" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,574 in our French list, against #31,541 for "hours". 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 "heurts" 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 #129,581 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heurts" and "hours" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heurt vs hours". 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 #129,581 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