heads up

intj

"heads-up" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“heads up” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an interjection. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
8
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Used as an informal warning, caution, or call for attention; pay attention!

Corpus desk

Index EN-heads-up · heads up · English

heads up · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "H" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for heads up
PropertyValue
Headwordheads up
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechInterjection
Letters8
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “heads up” in English

heads upfalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

heads up is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aninterjection. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Used as an informal warning, caution, or call for attention; pay attention!".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for heads up, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is heads up, spelled H-E-A-D-S- -U-P.

Definition

  1. 1
    Used as an informal warning, caution, or call for attention; pay attention!

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how heads up appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Heads up! I'm about to let go.
  2. Heads up! The boss is coming.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "heads up"?
"heads up" is spelled H-E-A-D-S- -U-P.
What does "heads up" mean?
As an interjection, "heads up" means: Used as an informal warning, caution, or call for attention; pay attention!
What language does "heads up" come from?
"heads up" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list