headedvsheadyConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#2,736
“headed” frequency rank
#31,593
“heady” frequency rank
34329
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature headed heady
Definition Of a sheet of paper: having the sender's name, address, etc. preprinted at the top. Intoxicating or stupefying.

Where the eye mixes headed and heady

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
headed
5 ch
heady

Look-alike desk: headed vs heady

A purely visual mix-up. headed (/ˈhɛdɪd/) and heady (/ˈhɛdi/) 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 34329, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

headed is recorded at frequency rank #2,736, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈhɛdɪd/. heady is at rank #31,593, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈhɛdi/.

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 34329, this pair ranks #321,768 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of headed vs heady

Shared letters: adeh. Private to "headed": -. Private to "heady": y.

"headed" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "heady" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • headedehaded · haeded · headde · headded · headedd · heaedd · hedaed · hheaded
  • headyehady · haedy · headdy · headyy · heayd · heday · hheady

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "headed" and "heady" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈhɛdɪd/ versus /ˈhɛdi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "headed" or "heady"?
"headed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,736 in our English list, against #31,593 for "heady". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "headed" and "heady" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "headed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "heady" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #321,768 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "headed" and "heady" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heady vs Henny". 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 #321,768 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list