hockey
/ˈhɒ.ki/
"hockey" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hockey” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,497 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,497
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 13
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any of a family of sports in which hockey sticks are used to move a ball or puck into a goal.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hockey |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈhɒ.ki/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #3,497 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 13 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hockey” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hockey is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈhɒ.ki/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,497 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for hockey, with forms such as "hcokey", "hhockey", and "hocckey". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 13 confusable-pair relationships, "hoke", "honey", "honky", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: 16th century, of unknown origin. Possibly related to hook due to the curvature of the stick, akin to hock (“hook”) + -ey, or from Middle French hoquet (“shepherd's staff, crook”), which resembles a hockey stick, via a diminutive form of Old French hoc from … The correct English form is hockey, spelled H-O-C-K-E-Y.
Definition
- 1Any of a family of sports in which hockey sticks are used to move a ball or puck into a goal.
- 2Field hockey, a team sport played on a pitch on solid ground where players have to hit a ball into a net using a hockey stick.
- 3Ice hockey, a game on ice in which two teams of six players skate and try to score by shooting a puck into the opposing team's net, using their sticks.
Etymology
16th century, of unknown origin. Possibly related to hook due to the curvature of the stick, akin to hock (“hook”) + -ey, or from Middle French hoquet (“shepherd's staff, crook”), which resembles a hockey stick, via a diminutive form of Old French hoc from Middle Dutch hoec (“hook”), a cognate of Old English hōc.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hcokey,hhockey,hocckey,hoceky,hockeyy,hockkey,hockye,hokcey,ohckey
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of hockey - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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
How do you spell "hockey"?
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Using “hockey”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-O-C-K-E-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈhɒ.ki/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “hoke” - see the side-by-side comparison. hockey vs hoke
- 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.