houxvshuiTell them apart

Quick tell: houx is a noun, hui is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“houx” is a noun and “hui” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,659
“houx” frequency rank
#11,783
“hui” frequency rank
57442
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature houx hui
Definition 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. Indication du jour du moment d’énonciation.

Where the eye mixes houx and hui

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
houx
3 ch
hui

Visual trap between houx and hui

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: houx is ^((h aspiré))\u\ while hui is \ɥi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57442, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

houx is recorded at frequency rank #45,659, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\u\. hui is at rank #11,783, tagged as anadv, pronounced \ɥi\.

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 57442, this pair ranks #115,026 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of houx vs hui

Shared letters: hu. Private to "houx": ox. Private to "hui": i.

"houx" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "hui" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • houxhhoux · houxx · hoxu · huox · ohux

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "houx" and "hui" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "houx" is a noun and "hui" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "houx" or "hui"?
"hui" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,783 in our French list, against #45,659 for "houx". 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 "houx" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #115,026 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "houx" and "hui" 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 #115,026 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