Which to use
“he'd” is a contraction and “hey” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,627
- “he'd” frequency rank
- #787
- “hey” frequency rank
- 3414
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | he'd | hey |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Contraction of he + had. | An exclamation to get attention. |
Where the eye mixes he'd and hey
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: he'd is /hiːd/ while hey is /heɪ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (contraction vs intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3414, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
he'd is recorded at frequency rank #2,627, classified as acontraction, pronounced /hiːd/. hey is at rank #787, tagged as anintj, pronounced /heɪ/.
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 3414, this pair ranks #522,179 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of he'd vs hey
Shared letters: eh. Private to "he'd": d. Private to "hey": y.
"he'd" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "hey" · 3 letters · shape CVV