Which to use
“heady” is an adjective and “held” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #31,593
- “heady” frequency rank
- #572
- “held” frequency rank
- 32165
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | heady | held |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Intoxicating or stupefying. | simple past and past participle of hold |
Where the eye mixes heady and held
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: heady vs held
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: heady is /ˈhɛdi/ while held is /ˈhɛld/. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32165, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
heady is recorded at frequency rank #31,593, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈhɛdi/. held is at rank #572, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈhɛld/.
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 32165, this pair ranks #340,126 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of heady vs held
Shared letters: deh. Private to "heady": ay. Private to "held": l.
"heady" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "held" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "heady" and "held" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "heady" vs "held" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "heady" and "held" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "heady" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "held" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #340,126 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "heady" and "held" 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 #340,126 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.