Which to use
“heart” is a noun and “heavy” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #491
- “heart” frequency rank
- #1,170
- “heavy” frequency rank
- 1661
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | heart | heavy |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A muscular organ that pumps blood through the body, traditionally thought to be the seat of emotion. | Having great weight. |
Where the eye mixes heart and heavy
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: heart is /hɑːt/ while heavy is /ˈhɛv.i/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1661, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
heart is recorded at frequency rank #491, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɑːt/. 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 1661, this pair ranks #526,952 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of heart vs heavy
Shared letters: aeh. Private to "heart": rt. Private to "heavy": vy.
"heart" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "heavy" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV