(This page may contain affiliate links. If you click and purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.)
Understanding the difference between commonly confused words will help you avoid making errors in English usage. Let’s examine the difference between the following:
hoard
Hoard means a stock or stash of objects or money, often one secretly kept. A hoard refers to inanimate objects, not people. As a verb it means to amass or gather such a supply, often obsessively.
Norman kept his hoard of expensive antique watches under lock and key.
horde
A horde means a large crowd or mob of people or living things; the term is used chiefly in a derogatory way and may imply a perceived threat coming from the group. Horde is a noun only, with no verb form.
Janet crossed the street to avoid the horde of raucous sports fans spilling out of the stadium.
☛ To help you remember which way to spell each of these words, here’s a tip:
Recall that a hoard (a secret stash) is something you might hide in a cupboard or under the baseboards. If you see a horde (a large crowd), you might say, “My word, what a record number of people!”
Photo credits:
Photo 1: Photo by Portable Antiquities on Flickr CC BY-2.0
Photo 2: Image by Keith Johnston from Pixabay