Which to use
“holy” is an adjective and “hôte” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #28,194
- “holy” frequency rank
- #6,098
- “hôte” frequency rank
- 34292
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | holy | hôte |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Saint, sainte. | Celui qui donne l’hospitalité par humanité, par amitié, par bienveillance. |
Where the eye mixes holy and hôte
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.
Why the eye confuses holy with hôte
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: holy is \ˈhoʊ.li\ while hôte is ^((h muet))\ot\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34292, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
holy is recorded at frequency rank #28,194, classified as anadj, pronounced \ˈhoʊ.li\. hôte is at rank #6,098, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h muet))\ot\.
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 34292, this pair ranks #284,832 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of holy vs hôte
Shared letters: h. Private to "holy": loy. Private to "hôte": etô.
"holy" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "hôte" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- holy ← hholy · hloy · holyy · hoyl · ohly
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "holy" and "hôte" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "holy" or "hôte"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "holy" and "hôte" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "holy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hôte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #284,832 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "holy" and "hôte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "holy vs hy". 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 #284,832 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.