Which to use
“horse” and “hôte” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #25,002
- “horse” frequency rank
- #6,098
- “hôte” frequency rank
- 31100
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | horse | hôte |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Cheval (animal). | Celui qui donne l’hospitalité par humanité, par amitié, par bienveillance. |
Where the eye mixes horse and hôte
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: horse vs hôte
A purely visual mix-up. horse (\ˈhɔɹs\) and hôte (^((h muet))\ot\) 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 31100, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
horse is recorded at frequency rank #25,002, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈhɔɹs\. hôte is at rank #6,098, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h muet))\ot\.
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 31100, this pair ranks #305,982 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of horse vs hôte
Shared letters: eh. Private to "horse": ors. Private to "hôte": tô.
"horse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "hôte" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- horse ← hhorse · hores · horrse · horsse · hosre · hrose · ohrse
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "horse" for "hôte" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "horse" or "hôte" show up more?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "horse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hôte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #305,982 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "horse" and "hôte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hornet vs horse". 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 #305,982 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.