homesvshôtelsConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#36,429
“homes” frequency rank
#5,770
“hôtels” frequency rank
42199
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature homes hôtels
Definition Pluriel de home. Pluriel de hôtel.

Where the eye mixes homes and hôtels

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. homes runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against hôtels's 6 (CVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
homes
6 ch
hôtels

Why the eye confuses homes with hôtels

A purely visual mix-up. homes (^((h aspiré))\ɔm\) and hôtels (^((h muet))\ɔ.tɛl\) 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 42199, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

homes is recorded at frequency rank #36,429, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɔm\. hôtels is at rank #5,770, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h muet))\ɔ.tɛl\.

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 42199, this pair ranks #227,451 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of homes vs hôtels

Shared letters: ehs. Private to "homes": mo. Private to "hôtels": ltô.

"homes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "hôtels" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • homes ← hhomes · hmoes · hoems · homess · homse · ohmes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "homes" and "hôtels" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (^((h aspiré))\ɔm\ versus ^((h muet))\ɔ.tɛl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "homes" or "hôtels"?
"hôtels" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,770 in our French list, against #36,429 for "homes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "homes" and "hôtels" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "homes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hôtels" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #227,451 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "homes" and "hôtels" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "homes vs huées". 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 #227,451 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