Which to use
“houmous” and “humus” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,215
- “houmous” frequency rank
- #36,887
- “humus” frequency rank
- 83102
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | houmous | humus |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Préparation culinaire du Moyen-Orient, composée notamment de purée de pois chiches et de tahini (aussi appelé « tahina »). | Terre végétale. |
Where the eye mixes houmous and humus
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. houmous runs 7 letters (CVVCVVC) against humus's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between houmous and humus
A purely visual mix-up. houmous (^((h aspiré))\u.mus\) and humus (\y.mys\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83102, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
houmous is recorded at frequency rank #46,215, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\u.mus\. humus is at rank #36,887, tagged as anoun, pronounced \y.mys\.
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 83102, this pair ranks #15,444 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of houmous vs humus
Shared letters: hmsu. Private to "houmous": o. Private to "humus": -.
"houmous" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC · "humus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "houmous" and "humus" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "houmous" or "humus"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "houmous" and "humus" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "houmous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "humus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #15,444 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "houmous" and "humus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hummm vs humus". 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 #15,444 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.