Which to use
“hour” and “houx” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #27,094
- “hour” frequency rank
- #45,659
- “houx” frequency rank
- 72753
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hour | houx |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Espèce de hangar ou d’atelier destiné à travailler le bois pour le sabotage, etc. | Arbre toujours vert, de la famille des aquifoliacées, dont les feuilles sont luisantes et armées de piquants et dont le fruit est une baie d’un très beau rouge. |
Where the eye mixes hour and houx
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. hour and houx follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses hour with houx
A purely visual mix-up. hour (^((h aspiré))\uʁ\) and houx (^((h aspiré))\u\) 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 a single letter - r in “hour” becomes x in “houx”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72753, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hour is recorded at frequency rank #27,094, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\uʁ\. houx is at rank #45,659, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\u\.
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 72753, this pair ranks #42,896 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of hour vs houx
Shared letters: hou. Private to "hour": r. Private to "houx": x.
"hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "houx" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "hour" for "houx" ever safe?
Which is more common, "hour" or "houx"?
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 "hour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "houx" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #42,896 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hour" and "houx" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Houda vs houx". 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 #42,896 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.