Phew or whew?
phew is an interjection meaning “Used to express relief of tension, fatigue, or surprise”; whew is an interjection meaning “An expressive sound made indicating the release of one's inner tension; the…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) whew is about as common as phew.
What is the difference between phew and whew?
| phew | whew | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | interjection | interjection, verb |
| Meaning | Used to express relief of tension, fatigue, or surprise Used to show disgust | An expressive sound made indicating the release of one's inner tension; the release of breath; an expression of relief An expression of amazement or surprise ScotlandUKTo whistle with a shrill pipe, like a plover |
| Example | Phew, that took a long time to cook! | (from strenuous labour) Whew! That box weighs a ton! |
| Forms | whew, pew | whews, whewing, whewed |
| Pronunciation | /fjuː/ [ɸj̊u̥˥˩] /fɪu̯/ | /hwjuː/ /fjuː/ |
| In writing | 1.4 times per million words | 1.7 times per million words |
Sources: phew and whew in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of phew and whew
phew
- 1
Used to express relief of tension, fatigue, or surprise
Phew, that took a long time to cook!
- 2
Used to show disgust
Phew, it stinks in here!
whew
- 1
An expressive sound made indicating the release of one's inner tension; the release of breath; an expression of relief
(from strenuous labour) Whew! That box weighs a ton!
- 2
ScotlandUKTo whistle with a shrill pipe, like a plover
- 3
UKTo bustle about
- 4
An expression of amazement or surprise
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, phew or whew?
phew appears 1.4 times per million words; whew 1.7 times per million words.
phew 1.4 times per million wordswhew 1.7 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search phew vs whew?
“phew vs whew” is searched about 140 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“whew vs phew”, “phew or whew”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.