HoarevsholeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Hoare is a name, hole is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Hoare” is a name and “hole” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,979
“Hoare” frequency rank
#2,206
“hole” frequency rank
52185
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hoare hole
Definition A surname. A hollow place or cavity; an excavation; a pit; a dent; a depression; a fissure.

Letter map: Hoare vs hole

Shared letters muted; letters that set Hoare and hole apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Hoare runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against hole's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
Hoare
4 ch
hole

Part-of-speech tell for Hoare / hole

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Hoare is aname and holeanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52185, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hoare is recorded at frequency rank #49,979, classified as aname. hole is at rank #2,206, tagged as anoun, pronounced /həʊl/.

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 52185, this pair ranks #159,194 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Hoare vs hole

Shared letters: eho. Private to "Hoare": ar. Private to "hole": l.

"Hoare" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "hole" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hoare ← haore · hhoare · hoaer · hoarre · horae · ohare
  • hole ← hhole · hloe · hoel · holle · ohle

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Hoare" and "hole" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Hoare" is a name and "hole" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Hoare" or "hole" show up more?
"hole" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,206 in our English list, against #49,979 for "Hoare". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "Hoare" vs "hole" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hoare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hole" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #159,194 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hoare" and "hole" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hoare 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 #159,194 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