heilvsHeinWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: heil is a verb, Hein is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“heil” is a verb and “Hein” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,882
“heil” frequency rank
#41,169
“Hein” frequency rank
80051
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heil Hein
Definition To greet with a Sieg Heil. A surname.

Letter map: heil vs Hein

Shared letters muted; letters that set heil and Hein apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. heil and Hein follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
heil
4 ch
Hein

Grammar separator: heil vs Hein

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: heil is averb and Heinaname. On the page they differ by a single letter - l in “heil” becomes n in “Hein”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80051, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heil is recorded at frequency rank #38,882, classified as averb, pronounced /haɪl/. Hein is at rank #41,169, tagged as aname.

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 80051, this pair ranks #20,678 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of heil vs Hein

Shared letters: ehi. Private to "heil": l. Private to "Hein": n.

"heil" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Hein" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heil ← ehil · heill · hheil · hiel
  • Hein ← ehin · heinn · heni · hhein · hien

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "heil" for "Hein" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "heil" is a verb and "Hein" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "heil" or "Hein" show up more?
"heil" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,882 in our English list, against #41,169 for "Hein". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "heil" and "Hein". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "heil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Hein" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,678 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heil" and "Hein" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hein vs HIIT". 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 #20,678 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