hox
"hox" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hox” is uncommon English (frequency #87,384 among 23,837 “H” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #87,384
- frequency rank, English
- 23,837
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To hock; to hamstring; to cripple; to disable.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hox |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #87,384 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hox” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
hox is uncommon English at frequency #87,384 among 23,837 “H” headwords, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To hock; to hamstring; to cripple; to disable.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for hox, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English hoxen, reduction or back-formation of earlier hoxenen, from the noun *hoxene (only attested as hokschyne, with alteration after schyne), from Old English hōhsinu, from Proto-West Germanic *hą̄hasinu, from Proto-Germanic *hanhas… The correct English form is hox, spelled H-O-X.
Definition
- 1To hock; to hamstring; to cripple; to disable.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English hoxen, reduction or back-formation of earlier hoxenen, from the noun *hoxene (only attested as hokschyne, with alteration after schyne), from Old English hōhsinu, from Proto-West Germanic *hą̄hasinu, from Proto-Germanic *hanhasinwō, from *hanhaz (“heel”) + *senawō (“sinew”). Compare hough, huxen, and sinew.
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 “hox”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-O-X - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.