Which to use
“hôte” and “hour” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #6,098
- “hôte” frequency rank
- #27,094
- “hour” frequency rank
- 33192
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hôte | hour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Celui qui donne l’hospitalité par humanité, par amitié, par bienveillance. | Espèce de hangar ou d’atelier destiné à travailler le bois pour le sabotage, etc. |
Where the eye mixes hôte and hour
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. hôte (CVCV) and hour (CVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: hôte vs hour
A purely visual mix-up. hôte (^((h muet))\ot\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33192, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hôte is recorded at frequency rank #6,098, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h muet))\ot\. 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 33192, this pair ranks #292,271 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of hôte vs hour
Shared letters: h. Private to "hôte": etô. Private to "hour": oru.
"hôte" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- hour ← hhour · horu · hourr · huor · ohur
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "hôte" for "hour" ever safe?
Frequency check: "hôte" vs "hour" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "hôte" and "hour" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "hôte" 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 #292,271 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hôte" 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 #292,271 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.