hovel
/ˈhɒvəl/
"hovel" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hovel” is an uncommon English word, ranked #65,972 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #65,972
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An open shed for sheltering cattle, or protecting produce, etc., from the weather.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hovel |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈhɒvəl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #65,972 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hovel” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hovel is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈhɒvəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #65,972 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for hovel, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English hovel, hovil, hovylle, diminutive of *hove, *hof (“structure, building, house”), from Old English hof (“an enclosure, court, dwelling, house”), from Proto-West Germanic *hof, from Proto-Germanic *hufą (“hill, farm”), from Proto-Indo-Euro… The correct English form is hovel, spelled H-O-V-E-L.
Definition
- 1An open shed for sheltering cattle, or protecting produce, etc., from the weather.
- 2A poor cottage; a small, mean house; a hut.
- 3In the manufacture of porcelain, a large, conical brick structure around which the firing kilns are grouped.
- 4A straitjacket.
Etymology
From Middle English hovel, hovil, hovylle, diminutive of *hove, *hof (“structure, building, house”), from Old English hof (“an enclosure, court, dwelling, house”), from Proto-West Germanic *hof, from Proto-Germanic *hufą (“hill, farm”), from Proto-Indo-European *kewp- (“arch, bend, buckle”), equivalent to howf + -el. Compare Middle High German hobel (“cover, lid, covered wagon”). Cognate with Dutch hof (“garden, court”), German Hof (“yard, garden, court, palace”), Icelandic hof (“temple, hall”). Related to hove and hover.
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 “hovel”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-O-V-E-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈhɒvəl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.