hic
/hɪk/
"hic" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hic” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #49,392) as an interjection. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #49,392
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An approximation to the sound of a hiccup, used e.g. to indicate drunkenness.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hic · hic · English
hic · rank #49,392 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #49,392
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH Hessian
Nearest frequency peer: Hessian (-1 rank slots)
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.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “hic”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- Henny
Henny
50,612 corpus weight
- hermetic
hermetic
50,611 corpus weight
- Hessian
Hessian
50,610 corpus weight
- hic
hic
50,609 corpus weight
- hijacker
hijacker
50,608 corpus weight
- hippopotamus
hippopotamus
50,607 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “hic” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | hic |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | /hɪk/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #49,392 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “hic”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for hic is neighbouring look-alikes ("ho", "HR", …), not just typos; it is aninterjection pronounced /hɪk/. Frequency #49,392 among 2,646 “H” headwords. Gloss: "An approximation to the sound of a hiccup, used e.g. to indicate drunkenness.".
No misspelling variants are generated for hic in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ho", "HR", "HP", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Onomatopoeic. The correct English form is hic, spelled H-I-C.
Definition
- 1An approximation to the sound of a hiccup, used e.g. to indicate drunkenness.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how hic appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"This wine - hic! - tasted good."
Etymology
Onomatopoeic.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "hic", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).