holey
/ˈhəʊl.li/
"holey" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“holey” is uncommon English (frequency #81,408 among 2,646 “H” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #81,408
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Having, or being full of, holes.
Corpus desk
Index EN-holey · holey · English
holey · rank #81,408 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #81,408
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH holdfast
Nearest frequency peer: holdfast (-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 “holey”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Hetfield
Hetfield
18,598 corpus weight
- highball
highball
18,597 corpus weight
- historicism
historicism
18,595 corpus weight
- holdfast
holdfast
18,594 corpus weight
- holey
holey
18,593 corpus weight
- horrify
horrify
18,589 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “holey” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | holey |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈhəʊl.li/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #81,408 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “holey” in English
Rare enough to double-check
holey is uncommon English at frequency #81,408 among 2,646 “H” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈhəʊl.li/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Having, or being full of, holes.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for holey, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English holy, holi, holly, holli (“holey, spongy, hollow”); equivalent to hole + -y. The e was inserted in Modern English to distinguish the word from holy (“hallowed, sacred”). The correct English form is holey, spelled H-O-L-E-Y.
Definition
- 1Having, or being full of, holes.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how holey appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Fred loved holey Dutch cheese.
Steven also acknowledged that his presentation of self—wild locs, nerd glasses, and holey hipster jeans for our first interview—encourages whites to speak to him.
Etymology
From Middle English holy, holi, holly, holli (“holey, spongy, hollow”); equivalent to hole + -y. The e was inserted in Modern English to distinguish the word from holy (“hallowed, sacred”).
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 "holey", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).