hi

\i\

/\i\/ onomatopoeia

The verdict

“hi” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #8,405) as an onomatopoeia. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#8,405
frequency rank, French
1,969
“H” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Cri de peur.

Corpus desk

Index FR-hi · hi · French

hi · rank #8,405 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #8,405
  • LEN-SHORT 2 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,969
  • PHOTO-FINISH guerrier

Nearest frequency peer: guerrier (-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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « hi »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « hi » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

hi vs hp
50% similar
hi vs Hs
0% similar
hi vs hm
50% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for hi
PropertyValue
Headwordhi
LanguageFrench
Part of speechOnomatopoeia
IPA\i\
Letters2
Frequency rank#8,405
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « hi »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).hise place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « guerrier » (#8,404), « historiquement » (#8,406), « groupement » (#8,403). Parmi 1,969 lemmes en « H », « hi » est au #8,405. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for hi is neighbouring look-alikes ("hp", "Hs", …), not just typos; it is anonomatopoeia pronounced \i\. Frequency #8,405 among 1,969 “H” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

No generated misspelling entries exist for hi in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "hp", "Hs", "hm", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is hi, spelled H-I.

Definition

  1. 1
    Cri de peur.
  2. 2
    Sanglot, pleur.
  3. 3
    Gloussement de rire étouffé ou forcé.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how hi appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Dona Isabel : Vous ne m’aimez pas. Le secrétaire, avec un cri aigu : Hi ! ma parole, vous allez me faire faire des fautes ! J’allais écrire : vous ne m’aimez pas, sur l’enveloppe. Monsieur le Corregidor Ruiz Zeballos, à Vounemémépaz.
  2. « Ne dirait-on pas… hi ! hi !… que nous sommes… hi ! hi… Les gens les plus malheureux… hi ! hi !… de l’univers ? »

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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "hi"?
"hi" is spelled H-I. The IPA pronunciation is \i\.
What does "hi" mean?
As an onomatopoeia, "hi" means: Cri de peur.
What words are commonly confused with "hi"?
"hi" is commonly confused with "hp", "Hs", "hm". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "hi"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "hi" is \i\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "hi" come from?
"hi" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list