Which to use
“hold” is a verb and “hour” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #655
- “hold” frequency rank
- #675
- “hour” frequency rank
- 1330
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hold | hour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To grasp or grip. | A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes). |
Where the eye mixes hold and hour
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hold is /həʊld/ while hour is /aʊə/. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1330, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hold is recorded at frequency rank #655, classified as averb, pronounced /həʊld/. hour is at rank #675, tagged as anoun, pronounced /aʊə/.
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 1330, this pair ranks #527,644 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hold vs hour
Shared letters: ho. Private to "hold": dl. Private to "hour": ru.
"hold" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC