Which to use
“hea” is a noun and “heard” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #44,248
- “hea” frequency rank
- #542
- “heard” frequency rank
- 44790
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hea | heard |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Alternative spelling of hea'. | simple past and past participle of hear |
Letter map: hea vs heard
Shared letters muted; letters that set hea and heard apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.
Part-of-speech tell for hea / heard
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hea is anoun and heardaverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “hea” sits inside “heard”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44790, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hea is recorded at frequency rank #44,248, classified as anoun. heard is at rank #542, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈhɜːd/.
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 44790, this pair ranks #227,314 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of hea vs heard
Shared letters: aeh. Private to "hea": -. Private to "heard": dr.
"hea" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "heard" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- heard ← ehard · haerd · headr · heardd · hearrd · herad · hheard
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "hea" and "heard" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "hea" vs "heard" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
You've compared "hea" and "heard". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "hea" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "heard" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #227,314 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hea" and "heard" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hea vs Herat". 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 #227,314 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.