holdover
"holdover" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“holdover” is uncommon English (frequency #59,448 among 2,646 “H” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,448
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Something left behind, saved or remaining from an earlier time.
Corpus desk
Index EN-holdover · holdover · English
holdover · rank #59,448 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #59,448
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH historicity
Nearest frequency peer: historicity (-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.
Long-tail ranks near “holdover”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- heriot
heriot
40,556 corpus weight
- historicity
historicity
40,554 corpus weight
- holdover
holdover
40,553 corpus weight
- Holyhead
Holyhead
40,552 corpus weight
- honeydew
honeydew
40,551 corpus weight
- honeypot
honeypot
40,550 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “holdover” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | holdover |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #59,448 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “holdover” in English
Rare enough to double-check
holdover is uncommon English at frequency #59,448 among 2,646 “H” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for holdover, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Deverbal from hold over. The correct English form is holdover, spelled H-O-L-D-O-V-E-R.
Definition
- 1Something left behind, saved or remaining from an earlier time.
- 2The distance (at target) by which a rifle scope is aimed higher than the intended point of impact in order to compensate for bullet drop over the distance to the target.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how holdover appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
That policy is a holdover from days of punch card data entry.
Castle Rock Middle School was a frowning pile of red brick standing between the Post Office and the Library, a holdover from the time when the town elders didn't feel entirely comfortable with a school unless it looked like a reformatory.
Etymology
Deverbal from hold over.
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); 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "holdover", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).