Which to use
“held” is a verb and “hem” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #572
- “held” frequency rank
- #21,236
- “hem” frequency rank
- 21808
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | held | hem |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of hold | Used to fill in the gap of a pause with a vocalized sound. |
Where the eye mixes held and hem
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: held vs hem
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: held is /ˈhɛld/ while hem is /hɛm/. 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 (verb vs intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21808, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
held is recorded at frequency rank #572, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈhɛld/. hem is at rank #21,236, tagged as anintj, pronounced /hɛm/.
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 21808, this pair ranks #421,210 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of held vs hem
Shared letters: eh. Private to "held": dl. Private to "hem": m.
"held" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hem" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- held ← ehld · hedl · heldd · helld · hheld · hled
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "held" and "hem" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "held" or "hem"?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "held" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hem" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #421,210 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "held" and "hem" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hem vs HRW". 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 #421,210 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.