horsevshotteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#25,002
“horse” frequency rank
#39,336
“hotte” frequency rank
64338
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature horse hotte
Definition Cheval (animal). Sorte de panier, ouvrage du vannier, qui a des bretelles et qu’on porte sur le dos.

Where the eye mixes horse and hotte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. horse and hotte follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
horse
5 ch
hotte

Look-alike desk: horse vs hotte

A purely visual mix-up. horse (\ˈhɔɹs\) and hotte (^((h aspiré))\ɔt\) 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 64338, 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\. hotte is at rank #39,336, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɔt\.

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 64338, this pair ranks #77,538 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of horse vs hotte

Shared letters: eho. Private to "horse": rs. Private to "hotte": t.

"horse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "hotte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • horse ← hhorse · hores · horrse · horsse · hosre · hrose · ohrse
  • hotte ← hhotte · hotet · htote · ohtte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "horse" for "hotte" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈhɔɹs\ versus ^((h aspiré))\ɔt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "horse" vs "hotte" - which ranks higher?
"horse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,002 in our French list, against #39,336 for "hotte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "horse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hotte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #77,538 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "horse" and "hotte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hotte vs huttes". 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 #77,538 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