Which to use
“holy” is an adjective and “hour” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,396
- “holy” frequency rank
- #675
- “hour” frequency rank
- 2071
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | holy | hour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Dedicated to a religious purpose or a god. | A unit of time of one twenty-fourth of a day (sixty minutes). |
Where the eye mixes holy 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: holy is /ˈhəʊli/ 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2071, 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/. 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 2071, this pair ranks #525,934 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of holy vs hour
Shared letters: ho. Private to "holy": ly. Private to "hour": ru.
"holy" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "hour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC