holevshouveWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#26,052
“hole” frequency rank
#672
“houve” frequency rank
26724
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hole houve
Definition buraco primeira pessoa do singular do pretérito perfeito do indicativo do verbo haver

Letter map: hole vs houve

Shared letters muted; letters that set hole and houve apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. hole runs 4 letters (CVCV) against houve's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
hole
5 ch
houve

Role in the sentence - hole and houve

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hole is anoun and houveaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26724, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hole is recorded at frequency rank #26,052, classified as anoun, pronounced /hoʊl/. houve is at rank #672, tagged as averb.

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 26724, this pair ranks #42,369 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hole vs houve

Shared letters: eho. Private to "hole": l. Private to "houve": uv.

"hole" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "houve" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hole ← hhole · hloe · hoel · holle · ohle
  • houve ← hhouve · houev · houvve · hovue · huove · ohuve

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hole" and "houve" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hole" is a noun and "houve" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "hole" vs "houve" - which ranks higher?
"houve" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #672 in our Portuguese list, against #26,052 for "hole". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "hole" and "houve". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hole" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "houve" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #42,369 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hole" and "houve" 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 #42,369 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