Basic Details
Word: Hoard
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: A hidden store of money, food or valuable things; as a verb, to collect and keep a lot of something, often secretly.
Synonyms: stockpile, store, stash, cache
Antonyms: squander, waste
Sounds like: horde (a large, noisy crowd of people)
How to Spell Hoard
Syllables: hoard
Tricky part: The vowel is spelt oa, as in board. Students write hord, or confuse it with horde, which sounds the same but means a large crowd.
Watch out for: hord, hoarde, hoared
Memory tip: A hoard is often hidden under a floorboard, and hoard and board share the letters oard.
Usage Examples
Example 1: My little sister keeps a hoard of chocolates in a shoebox under her bed.
Example 2: Dad hoards rubber bands on the handle of the kitchen drawer.
Example 3: Farmers in the story found an old clay pot holding a hoard of silver coins.
Fun Fact
Many squirrels hide nuts in lots of separate spots, a habit called scatter-hoarding, and the nuts they forget can grow into new trees.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Connection
Choose the antonym of the word hoard as used in the sentence:
Aunt Leela tends to hoard old newspapers in the storeroom.
a) gather
b) discard
c) collect
d) keep
Show answer
b) discard. To discard is to throw away, the opposite of piling things up.
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the letters in the sentence to form a meaningful word:
The pirate buried his roadh of gold under a palm tree on the island.
a) hound
b) hoard
c) horde
d) hoarse
Show answer
b) hoard. Horde sounds the same but means a crowd and needs an e; a buried store of gold is a hoard.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
My grandfather kept a secret hord of old stamps in a tin box, and when he showed it to us last Diwali, we found one that was more than a hundred years old.
a) hundred
b) hord
c) secret
d) grandfather
Show answer
b) hord. Hoard has oa in the middle, just like board and cupboard.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Someone who hoards money is likely to ____.
a) give it to charity
b) lend it to friends
c) save it and hide it away
d) spend it all at once
Show answer
c) save it and hide it away
2. Shops that hoard rice during a shortage ____.
a) throw it all away
b) share it out for free
c) keep it back so prices rise
d) grow more of it
Show answer
c) keep it back so prices rise
