Which to use
“heel” is a noun and “hew” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #9,052
- “heel” frequency rank
- #46,513
- “hew” frequency rank
- 55565
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | heel | hew |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The rear part of the foot, where it joins the leg. | To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down. |
Where the eye mixes heel and hew
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. heel runs 4 letters (CVVC) against hew's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: heel vs hew
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: heel is /hiːl/ while hew is /hjuː/. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55565, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
heel is recorded at frequency rank #9,052, classified as anoun, pronounced /hiːl/. hew is at rank #46,513, tagged as averb, pronounced /hjuː/.
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 55565, this pair ranks #132,671 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of heel vs hew
Shared letters: eh. Private to "heel": l. Private to "hew": w.
"heel" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "hew" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- heel ← ehel · heell · hele · hheel
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "heel" and "hew" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "heel" or "hew" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "heel" and "hew" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "heel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hew" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #132,671 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "heel" and "hew" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hew vs HRW". 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 #132,671 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.