heavsheavyWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: hea is a noun, heavy is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hea” is a noun and “heavy” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,248
“hea” frequency rank
#1,170
“heavy” frequency rank
45418
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hea heavy
Definition Alternative spelling of hea'. Having great weight.

Letter map: hea vs heavy

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

3 ch
hea
5 ch
heavy

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hea is anoun and heavyanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “hea” sits inside “heavy”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45418, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hea is recorded at frequency rank #44,248, classified as anoun. heavy is at rank #1,170, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈhɛv.i/.

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 45418, this pair ranks #221,443 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hea vs heavy

Shared letters: aeh. Private to "hea": -. Private to "heavy": vy.

"hea" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "heavy" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heavyehavy · haevy · heavvy · heavyy · heayv · hevay · hheavy

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hea" and "heavy" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hea" is a noun and "heavy" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hea" or "heavy"?
"heavy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,170 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