holdover
"holdover" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“holdover” is uncommon English (frequency #59,448 among 23,837 “H” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,448
- frequency rank, English
- 23,837
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Something left behind, saved or remaining from an earlier time.
| 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) |
Where “holdover” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
holdover is uncommon English at frequency #59,448 among 23,837 “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.
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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Using “holdover”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-O-L-D-O-V-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.