heilvshiWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: heil is a verb, hi is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#38,882
“heil” frequency rank
#1,079
“hi” frequency rank
39961
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heil hi
Definition To greet with a Sieg Heil. A friendly, informal, casual greeting said upon someone's arrival.

Where the eye mixes heil and hi

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
heil
2 ch
hi

Look-alike desk: heil vs hi

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: heil is /haɪl/ while hi is /haɪ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39961, 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/. hi is at rank #1,079, tagged as anintj, pronounced /haɪ/.

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 39961, this pair ranks #271,930 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of heil vs hi

Shared letters: hi. Private to "heil": el. Private to "hi": -.

"heil" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "hi" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heilehil · heill · hheil · hiel

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "heil" and "hi" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "heil" is a verb and "hi" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "heil" or "hi" show up more?
"hi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,079 in our English list, against #38,882 for "heil". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "heil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #271,930 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heil" and "hi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heil 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 #271,930 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