Which to use
“held” and “hold” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #572
- “held” frequency rank
- #655
- “hold” frequency rank
- 1227
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | held | hold |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of hold | To grasp or grip. |
Where the eye mixes held and hold
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. held (/ˈhɛld/) and hold (/həʊld/) 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 a single letter - e in “held” becomes o in “hold”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1227, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
held is recorded at frequency rank #572, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈhɛld/. hold is at rank #655, tagged as averb, pronounced /həʊld/.
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 1227, this pair ranks #527,844 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of held vs hold
Shared letters: dhl. Private to "held": e. Private to "hold": o.
"held" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hold" · 4 letters · shape CVCC