Which to use
“hong” and “hour” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,462
- “hong” frequency rank
- #27,094
- “hour” frequency rank
- 32556
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hong | hour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Compagnie de marchands chinois à Canton, qui ont le privilège de commercer avec les Européens. | Espèce de hangar ou d’atelier destiné à travailler le bois pour le sabotage, etc. |
Where the eye mixes hong and hour
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses hong with hour
A purely visual mix-up. hong (^((h aspiré))\ɔ̃ɡ\) and hour (^((h aspiré))\uʁ\) 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 32556, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hong is recorded at frequency rank #5,462, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɔ̃ɡ\. hour is at rank #27,094, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\uʁ\.
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 32556, this pair ranks #296,498 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of hong vs hour
Shared letters: ho. Private to "hong": gn. Private to "hour": ru.
"hong" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "hong" and "hour" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "hong" or "hour"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "hong" and "hour" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "hong" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #296,498 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hong" and "hour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heurt vs hour". 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 #296,498 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.