hole
/həʊl/noun, verb
hole is spelled H-O-L-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 46 times per million words in written English, the 2,204th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “hole vs whole” about 1,300 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, hole means “A hollow place or cavity; an excavation; a pit; a dent; a depression; a fissure” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of hole is holes or @$$holes.
How many letters and syllables are in hole?
| Letters | 4: H-O-L-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 46 times per million words; the 2,204th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is hole?
Hole appears 46 times per million words in written English, the 2,204th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce hole?
- UK /həʊl/
- UK [hɔʊɫ]
- /hɒl/
Hole has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-hole.ogg, En-us-hole.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with hole
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: whole (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: whole.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with hole?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as hole from its last stressed vowel (/əʊl/, British pronunciation):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: helo, oleh.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of hole
- holes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- holing participle, present
- holed participle, past
- @$$holes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hole mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A hollow place or cavity; an excavation; a pit; a dent; a depression; a fissure.
I made a blind hole in the wall for a peg. I dug a hole and planted a tree in it.
- 2
An opening that goes all the way through a solid body, a fabric, etc.; a perforation; a rent.
There’s a hole in my shoe. Her stocking has a hole in it.
- 3
A subsurface standard-size hole, also called cup, hitting the ball into which is the object of play. Each hole, of which there are usually eighteen as the standard on a full course, is located on a prepared surface, called the green, of a particular type grass.
- 4
The part of a game in which a player attempts to hit the ball into one of the holes.
I played 18 holes yesterday. The second hole today cost me three strokes over par.
- 5
The rear portion of the defensive team between the shortstop and the third baseman.
The shortstop ranged deep into the hole to make the stop.
- 6
A square on the board, with some positional significance, that a player does not, and cannot in the future, control with a friendly pawn.
- 7
A card (also called a hole card) dealt face down thus unknown to all but its holder; the status in which such a card is.
- 8
In the game of fives, part of the floor of the court between the step and the pepperbox.
verb
- 1
To make holes in (an object or surface).
Shrapnel holed the ship's hull.
- 2
To destroy.
She completely holed the argument.
- 3
To go into a hole.
- 4
To drive into a hole, as an animal, or a billiard ball or golf ball.
Woods holed a standard three foot putt
- 5
To cut, dig, or bore a hole or holes in.
to hole a post for the insertion of rails or bars
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Hole in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | creux, trou , faille , trouer |
| German | Loch, Grube, Grübchen, Mulde, Vertiefung, Kerbe |
| Portuguese | buraco, oco , esburacar , furo , lacuna |
| Spanish | hoyo, pozo, buraco, huraco, hura, hurera |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does hole come from?
Inherited from Middle English hole, hol, from Old English hol (“orifice, hollow place, cavity”), from Proto-West Germanic *hol (“hole”), from Proto-Germanic *hulą (“hollow space, cavity”), noun derivative of Proto-Germanic *hulaz (“hollow”), which is of uncertain ultimate origin. Related to hollow.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).