hohvshoughWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: hoh is a intj, hough is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hoh” is an intj and “hough” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#32,846
“hoh” frequency rank
#29,686
“hough” frequency rank
62532
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hoh hough
Definition Alternative form of ho. Alternative form of hock (“the hollow behind the knee”).

Letter map: hoh vs hough

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

3 ch
hoh
5 ch
hough

Role in the sentence - hoh and hough

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hoh is anintj and houghanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62532, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hoh is recorded at frequency rank #32,846, classified as anintj. hough is at rank #29,686, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɒk/.

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 62532, this pair ranks #87,982 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hoh vs hough

Shared letters: ho. Private to "hoh": -. Private to "hough": gu.

"hoh" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hough" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hough ← hhough · hoguh · houggh · houghh · houhg · huogh · ohugh

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hoh" for "hough" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hoh" is an intj and "hough" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hoh" or "hough"?
"hough" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,686 in our English list, against #32,846 for "hoh". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "hoh" and "hough". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hoh" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hough" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #87,982 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hoh" and "hough" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hoh 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 #87,982 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