havevsholeConfusable pair

Quick tell: have is a verb, hole is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“have” is a verb and “hole” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,419
“have” frequency rank
#26,052
“hole” frequency rank
33471
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature have hole
Definition ter, possuir buraco

Letter map: have vs hole

Shared letters muted; letters that set have and hole apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. have and hole follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
have
4 ch
hole

Grammar separator: have vs hole

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: have is averb and holeanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33471, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

have is recorded at frequency rank #7,419, classified as averb. hole is at rank #26,052, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hoʊl/.

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 33471, this pair ranks #34,047 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of have vs hole

Shared letters: eh. Private to "have": av. Private to "hole": lo.

"have" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "hole" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • have ← ahve · haev · havve · hhave · hvae
  • hole ← hhole · hloe · hoel · holle · ohle

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "have" and "hole" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "have" is a verb and "hole" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "have" vs "hole" - which ranks higher?
"have" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,419 in our Portuguese list, against #26,052 for "hole". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "have" vs "hole" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "have" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hole" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #34,047 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "have" and "hole" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hebe vs hole". 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 #34,047 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list