HexenvsholenWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#11,895
“Hexen” frequency rank
#1,328
“holen” frequency rank
13223
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hexen holen
Definition ein Alken mit sechs Kohlenstoffatomen und zwölf Wasserstoffatomen etwas oder jemanden herbeischaffen

Where the eye mixes Hexen and holen

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Hexen and holen follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Hexen
5 ch
holen

Look-alike desk: Hexen vs holen

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Hexen is [hɛˈkseːn] while holen is [ˈhoːlən]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13223, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hexen is recorded at frequency rank #11,895, classified as anoun, pronounced [hɛˈkseːn]. holen is at rank #1,328, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈhoːlən].

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 13223, this pair ranks #1,959,330 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Hexen vs holen

Shared letters: ehn. Private to "Hexen": x. Private to "holen": lo.

"Hexen" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "holen" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hexen ← ehxen · heexn · hexenn · hexne · hexxen · hhexen · hxeen
  • holen ← hholen · hloen · hoeln · holenn · hollen · holne · ohlen

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Hexen" and "holen" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Hexen" is a noun and "holen" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Hexen" or "holen" show up more?
"holen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,328 in our German list, against #11,895 for "Hexen". 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 "Hexen" and "holen" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hexen" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "holen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,959,330 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hexen" and "holen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hemer vs Hexen". 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 #1,959,330 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