holly
/ˈhɒli/
"holly" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“holly” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #8,555 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #8,555
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any of various shrubs or (mostly) small trees, of the genus Ilex, either evergreen or deciduous, used as decoration especially at Christmas.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | holly |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈhɒli/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #8,555 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “holly” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for holly is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈhɒli/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,555 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for holly, with forms such as "hholly", "hloly", and "hollyy". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "hoy", "holy", "hull", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English holly, holi, holie, a shortened variation of holin, holyn (> English dialectal hollen, holm), from Old English holeġn, holen (“holly; prince, protector”), from Proto-West Germanic *hulis (“holly”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *kelh… The correct English form is holly, spelled H-O-L-L-Y.
Definition
- 1Any of various shrubs or (mostly) small trees, of the genus Ilex, either evergreen or deciduous, used as decoration especially at Christmas.
- 2The wood from this tree.
- 3Any of several not closely related plant species likened to Ilex because of their prickly, evergreen foliage and/or round, bright-red berries
Etymology
From Middle English holly, holi, holie, a shortened variation of holin, holyn (> English dialectal hollen, holm), from Old English holeġn, holen (“holly; prince, protector”), from Proto-West Germanic *hulis (“holly”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₂- (“to beat, break”). Cognates Cognate with Scots holin, hollin, holyn (“holly”), Dutch hulst (“holly”), German Hulst (“holly”), French houx ("holly" < Germanic), Danish hylver (“holly”), Welsh celyn (“holly”), Russian ко́лос (kólos, “ear of wheat”), Albanian kalli (“straw, chaff”), Latin culmus (“stalk, stem”), Sanskrit कटम्ब (kaṭamba, “arrow”), Old Church Slavonic класъ (klasŭ, “ear of grain”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hholly,hloly,hollyy,holyl,ohlly
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of holly - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “holly”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-O-L-L-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈhɒli/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “hoy” - see the side-by-side comparison. holly vs hoy
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.