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PlainSpell

hey

/heɪ/interjection, verb, noun

hey is spelled H-E-Y: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 132 times per million words in written English, the 792nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “hay vs hey” about 260 times a month (Google, United States). As an interjection, hey means “An exclamation to get attention” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in hey?

Letters3: H-E-Y
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing132 times per million words; the 792nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is hey?

Hey appears 132 times per million words in written English, the 792nd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce hey?

  • /heɪ/

Hey has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Pvanp7-hey.wav, En-us-hey.ogg, EN-AU_ck1_hey.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with hey

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

hay vs hey260 G
ey vs hey0 B

Sounds like: hay (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Also written: ey, he.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with hey?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as hey.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: yeh.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of hey

  • hay
  • heigh
  • heys present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • heying participle, present
  • heyed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does hey mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

interjection

  1. 1

    informalAn exclamation to get attention.

    Hey, look at this!

  2. 2

    informalA protest or reprimand.

    Hey! Stop that!

  3. 3

    informalAn expression of surprise.

    Hey! This is new!

  4. 4

    informalAn informal greeting, similar to hi.

    Hey! How's it going?

  5. 5

    informalA request for repetition or explanation; an expression of confusion.

    Hey? How's that?

  6. 6

    informalUsed as a tag question, to emphasise what goes before or to request that the listener express an opinion about what has been said.

  7. 7

    informalA meaningless beat marker or extra, filler syllable in song lyrics.

    The chorus is "nana na na, nana na na hey hey hey, goodbye".

verb

  1. 1

    informalTo greet with a "hey"

noun

  1. 1

    informalA choreographic figure in which three or more dancers weave between one another, passing by left and right shoulder alternately.

  2. 2

    informalAlternative spelling of he (“Hebrew letter”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Hey in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchhé (exclamation to get attention), holà (expression of surprise), coucou (informal greeting)
GermanHallo (exclamation to get attention), ey (protest or reprimand)
Portugueseei (exclamation to get attention), epa, opa (protest or reprimand)
Spanishimperative oír, hey, ey, eh, hao, oe (exclamation to get attention)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does hey come from?

From Middle English hey, hei, also without h- in ey, from Old English *hē, ēa (interjection), attested as first element in hēlā, ēalā (“O!, alas!, oh!, lo!”). Cognate with Dutch hé, hei (“hi, hey”), German hei (“hey, wow”), Danish and Swedish hej (“hello, hey”), Faroese hey (“hey, hello”), Old Norse, Icelandic and Norwegian hei (“hey”), Polish hej (“hey, hello”), Romanian hei, Russian эй (ej, “hey”); see heigh.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after hey