holevshookConfusable pair

Which to use

“hole” and “hook” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#28,986
“hole” frequency rank
#31,062
“hook” frequency rank
60048
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hole hook
Definition Trou. Effet inverse du slice.

Where the eye mixes hole and hook

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hole
4 ch
hook

Look-alike desk: hole vs hook

A purely visual mix-up. hole (\ˈhoʊl\) and hook (\uk\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60048, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hole is recorded at frequency rank #28,986, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈhoʊl\. hook is at rank #31,062, tagged as anoun, pronounced \uk\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 60048, this pair ranks #99,745 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hole vs hook

Shared letters: ho. Private to "hole": el. Private to "hook": k.

"hole" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "hook" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • holehhole · hloe · hoel · holle · ohle
  • hookhhook · hok · hoko · hookk · ohok

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hole" for "hook" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈhoʊl\ versus \uk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "hole" or "hook" show up more?
"hole" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,986 in our French list, against #31,062 for "hook". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hole" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hook" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #99,745 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hole" and "hook" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hoax vs hook". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #99,745 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list