heartvsheftWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#491
“heart” frequency rank
#39,349
“heft” frequency rank
39840
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heart heft
Definition A muscular organ that pumps blood through the body, traditionally thought to be the seat of emotion. The feel of the weight of something; heaviness.

Where the eye mixes heart and heft

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
heart
4 ch
heft

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. heart (/hɑːt/) and heft (/hɛft/) 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 39840, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heart is recorded at frequency rank #491, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɑːt/. heft is at rank #39,349, tagged as anoun, pronounced /hɛft/.

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 39840, this pair ranks #273,031 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of heart vs heft

Shared letters: eht. Private to "heart": ar. Private to "heft": f.

"heart" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "heft" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heartehart · haert · hearrt · heartt · heatr · hheart
  • heftehft · hefft · heftt · hetf · hfet · hheft

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "heart" and "heft" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/hɑːt/ versus /hɛft/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "heart" or "heft"?
"heart" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #491 in our English list, against #39,349 for "heft". 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