oi
/ɔɪ/
"oi" is a 2-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“oi” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #11,081) as an interjection. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #11,081
- frequency rank, English
- 1,431
- “O” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Said to get someone's attention; hey.
Corpus desk
Index EN-oi · oi · English
oi · rank #11,081 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #11,081
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,431
- PHOTO-FINISH observatory
Nearest frequency peer: observatory (-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 “oi”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- ninety
ninety
88,923 corpus weight
- observatory
observatory
88,921 corpus weight
- oi
oi
88,920 corpus weight
- outdoors
outdoors
88,918 corpus weight
- pcs
pcs
88,917 corpus weight
- pedestrian
pedestrian
88,916 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “oi” 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 | oi |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | /ɔɪ/ |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #11,081 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “oi” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for oi is neighbouring look-alikes ("on", "or", …), not just typos; it is aninterjection pronounced /ɔɪ/. Frequency #11,081 among 1,431 “O” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
oi doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "on", "or", "OK", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Variant of the interjection hoy with h-dropping in working class and Cockney speech; first recorded in the 1930s. Compare also unrelated Portuguese oi and Japanese おい (oi). The correct English form is oi, spelled O-I.
Definition
- 1Said to get someone's attention; hey.
- 2An expression of surprise.
- 3An informal greeting, similar to hi.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how oi appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Oi, you with the red hat – what do you think you're doing?
Oi! Stop that!
Etymology
Variant of the interjection hoy with h-dropping in working class and Cockney speech; first recorded in the 1930s. Compare also unrelated Portuguese oi and Japanese おい (oi).
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.