# held vs hew

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

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

### hew
*verb · IPA /hjuː/ · frequency rank #46,513*
To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.

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