he vs hey, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“he” is a pronoun and “hey” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#22
“he” frequency rank: #787
“hey” frequency rank: 809
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	he	hey
Definition	A person who identifies as male, or animal already known or implied.	An exclamation to get attention.

Where the eye mixes he and hey

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

2 ch

3 ch

hey

Why the eye confuses he with hey

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: he is /ˈhiː/ while hey is /heɪ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “he” sits inside “hey”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 809, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

he is recorded at frequency rank #22, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈhiː/. 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 809, this pair ranks #528,743 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of he vs hey

Shared letters: eh. Private to "he": -. Private to "hey": y.

"he" · 2 letters · shape CV · "hey" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "he" for "hey" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "he" is a pronoun and "hey" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "he" or "hey"?

"he" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22 in our English list, against #787 for "hey". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

Full dictionary entry for "he" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "hey" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #528,743 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"he" and "hey" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hey vs HRW". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #528,743 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.