Which to use
“head” is a noun and “heard” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #288
- “head” frequency rank
- #542
- “heard” frequency rank
- 830
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | head | heard |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs. | simple past and past participle of hear |
Where the eye mixes head and heard
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: head is /ˈhɛd/ while heard is /ˈhɜːd/. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 830, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
head is recorded at frequency rank #288, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhɛd/. 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 830, this pair ranks #528,694 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of head vs heard
Shared letters: adeh. Private to "head": -. Private to "heard": r.
"head" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "heard" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC