Which to use
“hors” is a preposition and “hour” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #688
- “hors” frequency rank
- #27,094
- “hour” frequency rank
- 27782
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hors | hour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Préposition servant à marquer l’exclusion du lieu. | Espèce de hangar ou d’atelier destiné à travailler le bois pour le sabotage, etc. |
Where the eye mixes hors and hour
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: hors vs hour
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hors is ^((h aspiré))\ɔʁ\ while hour is ^((h aspiré))\uʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27782, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hors is recorded at frequency rank #688, classified as aprep, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɔʁ\. 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 27782, this pair ranks #326,780 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of hors vs hour
Shared letters: hor. Private to "hors": s. Private to "hour": u.
"hors" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "hors" for "hour" ever safe?
Which is more common, "hors" or "hour"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "hors" and "hour" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "hors" 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 #326,780 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hors" 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 #326,780 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.