05/05/2018 List of words with a silent ‘h’ in English

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List of words with a silent ‘h’ in English

by Jakub Marian

Tip: See my guide to the Most Common Pronunciation Errors in Eng‐

lish. It will teach you about commonly mispronounced words, pro‐
nunciation patterns, and the basics of English phonology.

First, let me note that some people use “an” as the indefinite article form before
“historic”, “horrific”, “hotel” and a couple more words beginning with an “H”, so
they say “an istoric” rather than “a historic”. However, virtually all speakers do
pronounce the “H” at the beginning when the word is not preceded by the indefi‐
nite article (people do not say, for example, “Istory is an interesting subject.“)

Since these words do not begin with a vowel, the rule prescribing the “an” form
does not apply to them. In the past, both “an hotel” and “a hotel” were commonly
used because English words of French origin beginning with an “H” (such as
“hotel”) used to be pronounced without it (so “hotel” would be pronounced just
“otel”). Nonetheless, current usage inclines towards using “a”, not “an”, and always pro‐
nouncing the “H”. Saying “an istoric” instead of “a historic” is perceived as unedu‐
cated by some (but still quite widespread), so you may want to always pronounce
your Hs just to be on the safe side.

See also: A list of all my articles about English (grammar, pronunciation, ...)

Nevertheless, pronunciation of words like “historic” is not what I want to write

about in this article. There are other Hs that are truly silent (not pronounced at all
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05/05/2018 List of words with a silent ‘h’ in English

in any form of the word). The following list is meant primarily for English learn‐
ers, so it also contains notes about other common pronunciation mistakes made
by learners:

hour /ˈaʊə/ (aau-ə) UK, /ˈaʊɚ/ (aau-rr) US (both the same as “our”); the “h” at the
beginning is silent, as it should be also in the name of the letter H /eɪdʒ/
(eydzh). Some native speakers started to pronounce H as “heydzh” lately, but
such pronunciation is regarded as incorrect by many.

honour /ˈɒnər/ (on-ə) UK, honor /ˈɑːnɚ/ (aan-r) US; some learners also
mispronounce this word as if it had /ʌ/ at the beginning (as in “onion”
/ˈʌnjən/).

honest /ˈɒnɪst/ (on-ist) UK, /ˈɑːnɪst/ (aan-ist) US; “hon” is pronounced exactly the
same as in the previous word.

Hannah /ˈhɑnə/ (haa-nə) UK, /ˈhænə/ (hæ-nə) US; on the other hand, it is the final
“h” that is silent in this name, not the first one. The same is true for all words of
Hebrew origin ending with “ah”, e.g. Bar Mitzvah.

heir /ɛə/ UK, /ɛr/ US; a person who inherits something from someone else. It
comes from Old French, so the “H” remains silent; it sounds exactly the same
as “air” and “ere” (meaning “before long”).

exhausted /ɪɡˈzɔːstɪd/ (ig-zaw-stid); notice also that “x” at the beginning is

pronounced as “gz”, not as “ks”.

Thai /taɪ/; “th” in English is usually pronounced as /θ/ (as in “think”) or /ð/ (as in
“the”), but in “Thai”, is is pronounced just as “t”. The same applies to Thailand
too, of course.

vehicle /ˈviːəkl/ (vee-ə-kl); some speakers of American English pronounce the “h”,
but the vast majority keep the “h” silent and consider the pronunciation with
an “h” unnatural.

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05/05/2018 List of words with a silent ‘h’ in English

ghost /ɡəʊst/ (gəust) UK, /ɡoʊst/ (gohst) US; to end our discussion about the
silent “H”, notice that it is also silent in “ghost”. This is in fact the case with all
words beginning with “gh”, such as ghetto /ˈgɛtəʊ/ (ge-təu) UK, /ˈgɛtoʊ/ (ge-
toh) US, ghastly /ˈɡɑːstli/ (gaast-lee) UK, /ˈɡæstli/ (gæst-lee) US, and ghee /ɡiː/
(g-ee).

Note: The word “herb” and words derived from it (such as “herbal”) are usually
pronounced with an H at the beginning in British and Australian English, while
it usually remains silent in American and Canadian English.

This article was based on my guide to English pronunciation mistakes, which explains
many similar topics. Why don’t you check it out?

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