hod
/hɒd/
"hod" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hod” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #49,395 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #49,395
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To bob up and down on horseback, as an inexperienced rider may do; to jog.
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 | hod |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /hɒd/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #49,395 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hod” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hod is 3 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /hɒd/. Corpus data places it at rank #49,395 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "To bob up and down on horseback, as an inexperienced rider may do; to jog.".
No misspelling variants are generated for hod in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "HR", "HP", "HQ", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Scots hod (“to jog along on horseback”), probably related to hotch (“(verb) to move up and down jerkily, bob; to jog along on horseback; to hop like a frog; to fidget; to shrug; to heave with laughter; to cause to move jerkily; to shift in a s… The correct English form is hod, spelled H-O-D.
Definition
- 1To bob up and down on horseback, as an inexperienced rider may do; to jog.
Etymology
Borrowed from Scots hod (“to jog along on horseback”), probably related to hotch (“(verb) to move up and down jerkily, bob; to jog along on horseback; to hop like a frog; to fidget; to shrug; to heave with laughter; to cause to move jerkily; to shift in a sitting position to make room for others; to be overrun with; to swarm; (figuratively) to be angry; (noun) a jerk, jolt; a shrug; a fidget, twitch; a swarm of vermin; large, ungainly woman; untidy woman (figuratively) a hostile encounter, clash; state of disorder and filth, mess”) (whence English hotch (“to move irregularly up and down; to swarm”) (chiefly Scotland)), from Late Middle English hotchen (“to move jerkily, jolt; to attack (someone) (?)”), from Anglo-Norman hocher (“to shake (something) to and fro, jostle; to attack”) and Middle French hocher, Middle French, Old French hochier (“to shake (something) to and fro, jostle; to be unstable or wobbly, shake”) (modern French hocher (“to nod the head”)), from Frankish *hotsōn, *hottisōn, from *hottōn (“to shake; to toss”), perhaps ultimately from Proto-Germanic *hud- (“to shake”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ket- or *kwēt- (“to rock back and forth; to shake”), probably originally onomatopoeic. Compare Scots hotter (“(verb) to move in a jerky, uneven manner; to jolt; to shake; to walk unsteadily, totter; to shiver, shudder; to shake (with laughter); of liquid, etc.: to boil, bubble, seethe, sputter; to crowd, swarm; (noun) jolting or shaking; rattling sound; bubbling of boiling liquid; a shake, shiver; crowd, seething mass; motion or noise of such a crowd; jumbled heap”)). Cognates * Middle Dutch hutsen (modern Dutch hutsen (“to jog, jolt; to shake”)), Middle Dutch hotsen (modern Dutch hotsen, hossen (“to shake or swing to and fro; to run quickly”)) * German hotzen (“to shake or swing to and fro; to run quickly”) (Southern Germany) * Low German hūdern (“to shake; to shudder”) * Middle High German hozzen (“act of swinging someone to and fro to punish them (?)”) * Old English hūdenian (“to rock back and forth, shake, sway”)
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 “hod”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-O-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /hɒd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “HR” - see the side-by-side comparison. hod vs HR
- 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.