hew
/hjuː/
"hew" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hew” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #46,513 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #46,513
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hew |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /hjuː/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #46,513 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hew” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hew is 3 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /hjuː/. Corpus data places it at rank #46,513 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for hew, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "hi", "ho", "HR", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English hewen, from Old English hēawan, from Proto-West Germanic *hauwan, from Proto-Germanic *hawwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *kewh₂- (“to strike, hew, forge”). Cognate to West Frisian houwe (“to hew”), Cimbrian hauan (“to dig”), Dutch houwen… The correct English form is hew, spelled H-E-W.
Definition
- 1To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.
- 2To shape; to form.
- 3To act according to, to conform to; usually construed with to.
Etymology
From Middle English hewen, from Old English hēawan, from Proto-West Germanic *hauwan, from Proto-Germanic *hawwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *kewh₂- (“to strike, hew, forge”). Cognate to West Frisian houwe (“to hew”), Cimbrian hauan (“to dig”), Dutch houwen (“to hew”), German hauen (“to hew”), Luxembourgish haen (“to chop”), Danish hugge (“to hew”), Faroese høgga (“to hew”), Icelandic höggva (“to hew”), Norwegian Bokmål hogge, hugge (“to hew”), Norwegian Nynorsk hogga (“to hew”), Swedish hugga (“to hew”). Sense 3 derives from the phrase hew to the line (literally “cut evenly with an axe or saw”).
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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “hew”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-E-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /hjuː/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “hi” - see the side-by-side comparison. hew vs hi
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.