headvshepWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#288
“head” frequency rank
#34,523
“hep” frequency rank
34811
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature head hep
Definition The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs. hepatitis.

Where the eye mixes head and hep

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

4 ch
head
3 ch
hep

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. head (/ˈhɛd/) and hep (/hɛp/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34811, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

head is recorded at frequency rank #288, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈhɛd/. hep is at rank #34,523, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɛp/.

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 34811, this pair ranks #317,477 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of head vs hep

Shared letters: eh. Private to "head": ad. Private to "hep": p.

"head" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "hep" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • headehad · haed · headd · heda · hhead

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "head" and "hep" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈhɛd/ versus /hɛp/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "head" or "hep"?
"head" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #288 in our English list, against #34,523 for "hep". 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