Which to use
“holder” and “hordes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #44,493
- “holder” frequency rank
- #23,887
- “hordes” frequency rank
- 68380
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | holder | hordes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Détenteur (dans le domaine financier, en particulier). | Pluriel de horde. |
Where the eye mixes holder and hordes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. holder and hordes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between holder and hordes
A purely visual mix-up. holder (\ɔl.dœʁ\) and hordes (^((h aspiré))\ɔʁd\) 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 68380, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
holder is recorded at frequency rank #44,493, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔl.dœʁ\. hordes is at rank #23,887, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɔʁd\.
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 68380, this pair ranks #59,417 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of holder vs hordes
Shared letters: dehor. Private to "holder": l. Private to "hordes": s.
"holder" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "hordes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "holder" and "hordes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "holder" or "hordes" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "holder" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hordes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #59,417 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "holder" and "hordes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Haller vs holder". 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 #59,417 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.