hankvshookWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: hank is a noun, hook is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hank” is a noun and “hook” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,764
“hank” frequency rank
#23,987
“hook” frequency rank
51751
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hank hook
Definition (Garn) Strang, Docke 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs hooken

Letter map: hank vs hook

Shared letters muted; letters that set hank and hook apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
hank
4 ch
hook

Grammar separator: hank vs hook

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hank is anoun and hookaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51751, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hank is recorded at frequency rank #27,764, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. hook is at rank #23,987, tagged as averb, pronounced [hʊk].

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 51751, this pair ranks #1,123,404 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hank vs hook

Shared letters: hk. Private to "hank": an. Private to "hook": o.

"hank" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hook" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hankahnk · hakn · hankk · hannk · hhank · hnak
  • hookhhook · hok · hoko · hookk · ohok

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "hank" and "hook" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hank" is a noun and "hook" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hank" or "hook"?
"hook" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,987 in our German list, against #27,764 for "hank". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "hank" and "hook". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hank" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hook" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,123,404 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hank" and "hook" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hank vs puzzles". 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 #1,123,404 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list