hield
"hield" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hield” is an uncommon English word, ranked #88,420 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #88,420
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To bend; incline; tilt (as a water-vessel or ship); heel.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hield |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #88,420 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hield” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hield is 5 letters long, classified as a verb. Corpus data places it at rank #88,420 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No generated misspelling entries exist for hield in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English heelden, helden, from Old English hieldan, heldan (“to lean, incline, slope, force downwards, bow or bend down”), from Proto-West Germanic *halþijan, from Proto-Germanic *halþijaną (“to bend, incline, pour, empty”), from Proto-Indo-Europ… The correct English form is hield, spelled H-I-E-L-D.
Definition
- 1To bend; incline; tilt (as a water-vessel or ship); heel.
- 2To pour out; pour.
- 3To throw; cast; put.
- 4To bow; bend; incline; tilt or cant over.
- 5To decline; sink; go down.
- 6To yield; give way; surrender.
Etymology
From Middle English heelden, helden, from Old English hieldan, heldan (“to lean, incline, slope, force downwards, bow or bend down”), from Proto-West Germanic *halþijan, from Proto-Germanic *halþijaną (“to bend, incline, pour, empty”), from Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“to tilt, tip, incline”). Cognate with Dutch hellen (“to incline”), Low German hellen (“to incline”), Middle High German helden (“to incline”), Danish hælde (“to tilt, lean, slant, slope”), Swedish hälla (“to tilt, pour”), Icelandic halla (“incline, lean sideways, heel over”), Icelandic hella (“to pur”). See also heel.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “hield”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-I-E-L-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.