huervshurtWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#42,925
“huer” frequency rank
#47,383
“hurt” frequency rank
90308
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature huer hurt
Definition Poursuivre le loup avec des huées. Blesser, endolorir, faire du mal.

Where the eye mixes huer and hurt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. huer (CVVC) and hurt (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
huer
4 ch
hurt

Visual trap between huer and hurt

A purely visual mix-up. huer (^((h aspiré))\y.e\) and hurt (\ˈhɝt\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 90308, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

huer is recorded at frequency rank #42,925, classified as averb, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\y.e\. hurt is at rank #47,383, tagged as averb, pronounced \ˈhɝt\.

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 90308, this pair ranks #4,925 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of huer vs hurt

Shared letters: hru. Private to "huer": e. Private to "hurt": t.

"huer" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "hurt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • huer ← hhuer · huerr · hure · uher
  • hurt ← hhurt · hrut · hurrt · hurtt · hutr · uhrt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "huer" for "hurt" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (^((h aspiré))\y.e\ versus \ˈhɝt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "huer" or "hurt" show up more?
"huer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42,925 in our French list, against #47,383 for "hurt". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "huer" and "hurt" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "huer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hurt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #4,925 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "huer" and "hurt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heurt 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 #4,925 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