há vs hey, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“há” is a verb and “hey” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#88
“há” frequency rank: #6,190
“hey” frequency rank: 6278
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	há	hey
Definition	terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo haver	oi; olá (usada como saudação)

Letter map: há vs hey

Shared letters muted; letters that set há and hey apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

há

3 ch

hey

Grammar separator: há vs hey

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: há is averb and heyanintj. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6278, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

há is recorded at frequency rank #88, classified as averb. hey is at rank #6,190, tagged as anintj, pronounced /ˈhɛi/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 6278, this pair ranks #68,181 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of há vs hey

Shared letters: h. Private to "há": á. Private to "hey": ey.

"há" · 2 letters · shape CV · "hey" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "há" and "hey" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "há" is a verb and "hey" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "há" or "hey"?

"há" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #88 in our Portuguese list, against #6,190 for "hey". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "há" vs "hey" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "há" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "hey" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #68,181 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"há" and "hey" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hey vs hui". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #68,181 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.