How to tell your hordes from your hoards

Hordes of hoarders hoard their hoards. I don’t have any great secret to remembering the difference between those words. Perhaps that sentence is it.

Even their definitions are quite similar:

horde: noun 1. a large group of people, especially attackers or invaders.
2. (usually plural) a large and dangerous or threatening group of animals.
3. (usually plural) Colloquial a very large number of people.
Verb — to gather in a horde.

hoard: noun — an accumulation of something for preservation or future use.
verb — to accumulate for preservation or future use, especially in a secluded place.

hoarder: noun — a person or animal that hoards.

You can talk about hoards of cash or hoards of food or a hoarder, but when it comes to large numbers of people, the word you’re looking for is horde.

Maybe one way of recalling which is which is to remember that large, numbers and people all have an e, and so does horde.

Wendy Wood, Proofreader

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