hiddenvsholdenWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: hidden is a verb, holden is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hidden” is a verb and “holden” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,382
“hidden” frequency rank
#27,353
“holden” frequency rank
51735
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hidden holden
Definition Partizip Perfekt (past participle) des Verbs hide Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs hold

Letter map: hidden vs holden

Shared letters muted; letters that set hidden and holden apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
hidden
6 ch
holden

Role in the sentence - hidden and holden

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hidden is averb and holdenanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51735, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hidden is recorded at frequency rank #24,382, classified as averb, pronounced […]. holden is at rank #27,353, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈhɔldn̩].

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 51735, this pair ranks #1,124,042 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hidden vs holden

Shared letters: dehn. Private to "hidden": i. Private to "holden": lo.

"hidden" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "holden" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hiddenhdiden · hhidden · hiddenn · hiddne · hidedn · hiden · ihdden
  • holdenhholden · hloden · hodlen · holdden · holdenn · holdne · holedn · hollden

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "hidden" and "holden" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hidden" is a verb and "holden" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "hidden" or "holden" show up more?
"hidden" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,382 in our German list, against #27,353 for "holden". 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 "hidden" and "holden". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hidden" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "holden" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,124,042 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hidden" and "holden" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hidden 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 #1,124,042 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