heavsheartWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“hea” and “heart” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#44,248
“hea” frequency rank
#491
“heart” frequency rank
44739
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hea heart
Definition Alternative spelling of hea'. A muscular organ that pumps blood through the body, traditionally thought to be the seat of emotion.

Letter map: hea vs heart

Shared letters muted; letters that set hea and heart apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
hea
5 ch
heart

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

hea and heart are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “hea” sits inside “heart”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44739, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hea is recorded at frequency rank #44,248, classified as anoun. heart is at rank #491, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɑːt/.

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 44739, this pair ranks #227,810 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hea vs heart

Shared letters: aeh. Private to "hea": -. Private to "heart": rt.

"hea" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "heart" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heartehart · haert · hearrt · heartt · heatr · hheart

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hea" and "heart" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “hea” sits inside “heart”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "hea" or "heart"?
"heart" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #491 in our English list, against #44,248 for "hea". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list