Which to use
“held” and “hod” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #572
- “held” frequency rank
- #49,395
- “hod” frequency rank
- 49967
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | held | hod |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of hold | To bob up and down on horseback, as an inexperienced rider may do; to jog. |
Where the eye mixes held and hod
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. held runs 4 letters (CVCC) against hod's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses held with hod
A purely visual mix-up. held (/ˈhɛld/) and hod (/hɒd/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49967, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
held is recorded at frequency rank #572, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈhɛld/. 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 49967, this pair ranks #178,581 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of held vs hod
Shared letters: dh. Private to "held": el. Private to "hod": o.
"held" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hod" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- held ← ehld · hedl · heldd · helld · hheld · hled
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "held" and "hod" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "held" vs "hod" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "held" and "hod" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "held" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hod" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #178,581 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "held" and "hod" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hod vs hoke". 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 #178,581 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.