hey
\heɪ\
The verdict
“hey” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #3,461) as an interjection. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #3,461
- frequency rank, French
- 1,969
- “H” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Hé.
Corpus desk
Index FR-hey · hey · French
hey · rank #3,461 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #3,461
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,969
- PHOTO-FINISH hautes
Nearest frequency peer: hautes (-1 rank slots)
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 neighbourhood for “hey”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- gagnant
gagnant
96,543 corpus weight
- gouvernemen…
gouvernements
96,542 corpus weight
- hautes
hautes
96,541 corpus weight
- hey
hey
96,540 corpus weight
- identifier
identifier
96,539 corpus weight
- intelligent
intelligent
96,538 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “hey” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | hey |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | \heɪ\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #3,461 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Où “hey” se place dans la fréquence du français
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for hey is neighbouring look-alikes ("hi", "hp", …), not just typos; it is aninterjection pronounced \heɪ\. Frequency #3,461 among 1,969 “H” headwords. Gloss: "Hé.".
Zero misspellings are on record for hey in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "hi", "hp", "Hs", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is hey, spelled H-E-Y.
Definition
- 1Hé.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how hey appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Hey diddle diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed To see such sport, And the dish ran away with the spoon.
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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "hey"?
What does "hey" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "hey"?
How do you pronounce "hey"?
What language does "hey" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "hey", not the corpus desk frequency band.
What to do next
You've looked up "hey". Here's where to go from here.
- "hey" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "hi". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #3,461 among French headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more French words in the "H" letter cohort. H–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.