hidvshotWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: hid is a verb, hot is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hid” is a verb and “hot” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,760
“hid” frequency rank
#711
“hot” frequency rank
10471
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hid hot
Definition simple past of hide Relating to heat and conditions which produce it.

Where the eye mixes hid and hot

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
hid
3 ch
hot

Look-alike desk: hid vs hot

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hid is /hɪd/ while hot is /hɒt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10471, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hid is recorded at frequency rank #9,760, classified as averb, pronounced /hɪd/. hot is at rank #711, tagged as anadj, pronounced /hɒt/.

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 10471, this pair ranks #492,163 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hid vs hot

Shared letters: h. Private to "hid": di. Private to "hot": ot.

"hid" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hot" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "hid" and "hot" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hid" is a verb and "hot" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "hid" or "hot" show up more?
"hot" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #711 in our English list, against #9,760 for "hid". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hid" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hot" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #492,163 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hid" and "hot" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hid vs HIIT". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #492,163 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list