# held vs Hess

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### held
*verb · IPA /ˈhɛld/ · frequency rank #572*
simple past and past participle of hold

### Hess
*name · IPA /hɛs/ · frequency rank #23,298*
A habitational surname from German of German and Ashkenazi origin, denoting a person from Hesse.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/held-vs-hess