hod
/hɒd/
"hod" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hod” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #49,395) as a verb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #49,395
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To bob up and down on horseback, as an inexperienced rider may do; to jog.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hod · hod · English
hod · rank #49,395 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #49,395
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH hippopotamus
Nearest frequency peer: hippopotamus (-1 rank slots)
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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “hod”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- hic
hic
50,609 corpus weight
- hijacker
hijacker
50,608 corpus weight
- hippopotamus
hippopotamus
50,607 corpus weight
- hod
hod
50,606 corpus weight
- holla
holla
50,604 corpus weight
- homophobe
homophobe
50,603 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “hod” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for hod is neighbouring look-alikes ("HR", "HP", …), not just typos; it is averb pronounced /hɒd/. Frequency #49,395 among 2,646 “H” headwords. Gloss: "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.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how hod appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
To have caught young wild ducks—a dozen— / So we "hodded" them in a hat to town, / To get them "pot-luck"—at least a "shake down," / With some tame, domestic cousin.
They hodded off the furniture, moth-eaten, cracked, and old, / For iron old the swords and helms and dish-covers they sold; […]
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "hod", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
You've looked up "hod". Here's where to go from here.
- "hod" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "HR". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #49,395 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "H" letter cohort. H–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.