horstvshoursWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#45,100
“horst” frequency rank
#31,541
“hours” frequency rank
76641
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature horst hours
Definition Compartiment surélevé entre deux grabens. Chevalets qui soutiennent l’arbre sur lequel travaillent des scieurs de long.

Where the eye mixes horst and hours

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. horst (CVCCC) and hours (CVVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
horst
5 ch
hours

Look-alike desk: horst vs hours

A purely visual mix-up. horst (\ɔʁst\) and hours (^((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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76641, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

horst is recorded at frequency rank #45,100, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔʁst\. hours is at rank #31,541, 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 76641, this pair ranks #30,562 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of horst vs hours

Shared letters: hors. Private to "horst": t. Private to "hours": u.

"horst" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "hours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • horst ← hhorst · horrst · horsst · horstt · horts · hosrt · hrost · ohrst
  • hours ← hhours · hourrs · hourss · housr · huors · ohurs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "horst" and "hours" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɔʁst\ versus ^((h aspiré))\uʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "horst" vs "hours" - which ranks higher?
"hours" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,541 in our French list, against #45,100 for "horst". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "horst" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hours" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,562 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "horst" and "hours" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "horst vs hurt". 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 #30,562 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