hommesvshordesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#289
“hommes” frequency rank
#23,887
“hordes” frequency rank
24176
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hommes hordes
Definition Pluriel de homme. Pluriel de horde.

Where the eye mixes hommes and hordes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
hommes
6 ch
hordes

Why the eye confuses hommes with hordes

A purely visual mix-up. hommes (\ɔm\) 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 24176, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hommes is recorded at frequency rank #289, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔm\. 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 24176, this pair ranks #348,125 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hommes vs hordes

Shared letters: ehos. Private to "hommes": m. Private to "hordes": dr.

"hommes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "hordes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hommeshhommes · hmomes · homems · hommess · hommse · ohmmes
  • hordeshhordes · hodres · horddes · hordess · hordse · horeds · horrdes · ohrdes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hommes" and "hordes" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ɔm\ versus ^((h aspiré))\ɔʁd\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "hommes" or "hordes" show up more?
"hommes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #289 in our French list, against #23,887 for "hordes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "hommes" 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 #348,125 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hommes" and "hordes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hordes vs hornet". 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 #348,125 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