ho-hum
"ho-hum" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ho-hum” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Boring; not interesting or novel.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ho-hum · ho-hum · English
ho-hum · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "H" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ho-hum |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “ho-hum” in English
Rare enough to double-check
ho-hum is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Boring; not interesting or novel.".
ho-hum doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is ho-hum, spelled H-O---H-U-M.
Definition
- 1Boring; not interesting or novel.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how ho-hum appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
She wore ho-hum clothes, but practical ones.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.