# hole

> English word · Noun · IPA /həʊl/ · frequency rank #2,206

## Definitions
1. A hollow place or cavity; an excavation; a pit; a dent; a depression; a fissure.
2. An opening that goes all the way through a solid body, a fabric, etc.; a perforation; a rent.
3. In games.
4. In games.
5. In games.
6. In games.
7. In games.
8. In games.
9. An excavation pit or trench.
10. A weakness; a flaw or ambiguity.
11. In semiconductors, a lack of an electron in an occupied band behaving like a positively charged particle.
12. A security vulnerability in software which can be taken advantage of by an exploit.
13. A person's mouth.
14. Any bodily orifice, in particular the anus.
15. A vagina.
16. Solitary confinement, a high-security prison cell often used as punishment.
17. An undesirable place to live or visit.
18. Difficulty, in particular, debt.
19. A chordless cycle in a graph.
20. A passing loop; a siding provided for trains traveling in opposite directions on a single-track line to pass each other.
21. A mountain valley.

## Etymology
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.
Cognate with Dutch, Faroese, and Icelandic hol (“hole”), Danish hul (“hole”), Faroese, Icelandic, and Norn hola (“hole”), Norwegian Bokmål hol (“depression, hole, cavern”), Swedish hål (“hole”), French houle (“swell of water”). Compare unrelated Finnish kolo (“hole”).

## Easily confused with
- **how** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-how)
- **hot** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hot)
- **hop** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hop)
- **hon** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hon)
- **hue** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hue)
- **hoo** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hoo)
- **hye** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hye)
- **Hou** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hou)
- **hoy** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hoy)
- **hos** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hos)
- **Hom** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hom)
- **hse** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hse)
- **hor** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hor)
- **HOV** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hov)
- **home** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-home)
- **hope** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hope)
- **hour** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-hour)
- **huge** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-huge)
- **holy** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-holy)
- **host** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/hole-vs-host)

## Common misspellings (5)
`hhole`, `hloe`, `hoel`, `holle`, `ohle`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/hole