HomèrevshommeWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#25,351
“Homère” frequency rank
#152
“homme” frequency rank
25503
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Homère homme
Definition Poète grec (aède) de la fin du VIIIᵉ siècle av. J.-C., à qui sont attribuées les deux premières œuvres de la littérature occidentale : l’Iliade et l’Odyssée. Être humain adulte de genre ou de sexe masculin, par opposition à la femme et à l’enfant.

Where the eye mixes Homère and homme

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

6 ch
Homère
5 ch
homme

Visual trap between Homère and homme

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Homère is ^((h muet))\ɔ.mɛʁ\ while homme is ^((h muet))\ɔm\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25503, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Homère is recorded at frequency rank #25,351, classified as aname, pronounced ^((h muet))\ɔ.mɛʁ\. homme is at rank #152, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h muet))\ɔm\.

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 25503, this pair ranks #340,491 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Homère vs homme

Shared letters: ehmo. Private to "Homère": rè. Private to "homme": -.

"Homère" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "homme" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • homme ← hhomme · hmome · homem · ohmme

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Homère" and "homme" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Homère" is a name and "homme" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Homère" or "homme" show up more?
"homme" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #152 in our French list, against #25,351 for "Homère". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Homère" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "homme" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #340,491 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Homère" and "homme" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hombre vs Homère". 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 #340,491 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