HobbesvshobbyTell them apart

Quick tell: Hobbes is a name, hobby is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Hobbes” is a name and “hobby” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,991
“Hobbes” frequency rank
#24,999
“hobby” frequency rank
56990
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hobbes hobby
Definition Nom de famille. Occupation préférée, d’importance secondaire par rapport aux activités principales de la vie.

Letter map: Hobbes vs hobby

Shared letters muted; letters that set Hobbes and hobby apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. Hobbes runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against hobby's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
Hobbes
5 ch
hobby

Part-of-speech tell for Hobbes / hobby

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Hobbes is aname and hobbyanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56990, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hobbes is recorded at frequency rank #31,991, classified as aname. hobby is at rank #24,999, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɔ.bi\.

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 56990, this pair ranks #117,703 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Hobbes vs hobby

Shared letters: bho. Private to "Hobbes": es. Private to "hobby": y.

"Hobbes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "hobby" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hobbeshbobes · hhobbes · hobbess · hobbse · hobebs · hobes · ohbbes
  • hobbyhboby · hhobby · hobbyy · hoby · hobyb · ohbby

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Hobbes" and "hobby" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Hobbes" is a name and "hobby" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Hobbes" or "hobby"?
"hobby" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,999 in our French list, against #31,991 for "Hobbes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "Hobbes" vs "hobby" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hobbes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hobby" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #117,703 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hobbes" and "hobby" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hobbes vs hobbies". 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 #117,703 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