homevshôtesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#6,095
“home” frequency rank
#8,560
“hôtes” frequency rank
14655
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature home hôtes
Definition Foyer, chez-soi. Pluriel de hôte.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set home and hôtes apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch
home
5 ch
hôtes

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. home (^((h aspiré))\om\) and hôtes (^((h muet))\ot\) 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 14655, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

home is recorded at frequency rank #6,095, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\om\. hôtes is at rank #8,560, 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 14655, this pair ranks #395,760 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of home vs hôtes

Shared letters: eh. Private to "home": mo. Private to "hôtes": stô.

"home" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "hôtes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • homehhome · hmoe · hoem · ohme

Frequency comparison

home#6,095
hôtes#8,560

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "home" and "hôtes" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (^((h aspiré))\om\ versus ^((h muet))\ot\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "home" or "hôtes"?
"home" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,095 in our French list, against #8,560 for "hôtes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering home vs hôtes

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Read both glosses above and match the meaning you intend, only context separates this pair.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “home” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list