holyvshoraWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: holy is a adjective, hora is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“holy” is an adjective and “hora” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,396
“holy” frequency rank
#49,403
“hora” frequency rank
50799
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature holy hora
Definition Dedicated to a religious purpose or a god. A circle dance popular in the Balkans, Israel and Yiddish culture worldwide.

Letter map: holy vs hora

Shared letters muted; letters that set holy and hora apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. holy and hora follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
holy
4 ch
hora

Grammar separator: holy vs hora

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: holy is anadjective and horaanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50799, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

holy is recorded at frequency rank #1,396, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈhəʊli/. hora is at rank #49,403, tagged as anoun.

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 50799, this pair ranks #171,034 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of holy vs hora

Shared letters: ho. Private to "holy": ly. Private to "hora": ar.

"holy" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "hora" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • holy ← hholy · hloy · holyy · hoyl · ohly
  • hora ← hhora · hoar · horra · hroa · ohra

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "holy" and "hora" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "holy" is an adjective and "hora" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "holy" or "hora" show up more?
"holy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,396 in our English list, against #49,403 for "hora". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "holy" and "hora". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "holy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hora" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #171,034 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "holy" and "hora" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hoke vs hora". 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 #171,034 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