Which to use
“head” is a noun and “hod” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #288
- “head” frequency rank
- #49,395
- “hod” frequency rank
- 49683
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | head | hod |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs. | To bob up and down on horseback, as an inexperienced rider may do; to jog. |
Where the eye mixes head and hod
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: head is /ˈhɛd/ while hod is /hɒd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49683, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
head is recorded at frequency rank #288, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhɛd/. hod is at rank #49,395, tagged as averb, pronounced /hɒd/.
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 49683, this pair ranks #181,322 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of head vs hod
Shared letters: dh. Private to "head": ae. Private to "hod": o.
"head" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "hod" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- head ← ehad · haed · headd · heda · hhead