Which to use
“hole” is a noun and “hotly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,206
- “hole” frequency rank
- #31,602
- “hotly” frequency rank
- 33808
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hole | hotly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A hollow place or cavity; an excavation; a pit; a dent; a depression; a fissure. | With great amounts of heat. |
Letter map: hole vs hotly
Shared letters muted; letters that set hole and hotly apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.
Part-of-speech tell for hole / hotly
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hole is anoun and hotlyanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33808, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hole is recorded at frequency rank #2,206, classified as anoun, pronounced /həʊl/. hotly is at rank #31,602, tagged as anadv.
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 33808, this pair ranks #326,227 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of hole vs hotly
Shared letters: hlo. Private to "hole": e. Private to "hotly": ty.
"hole" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "hotly" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "hole" and "hotly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "hole" vs "hotly" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've compared "hole" and "hotly". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "hole" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hotly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #326,227 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hole" and "hotly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Holtby vs hotly". 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 #326,227 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.