he vs hey, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#7,293
“he” frequency rank: #6,190
“hey” frequency rank: 13483
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	he	hey
Definition	caso nominativo da terceira pessoa do plural, eles, elas	oi; olá (usada como saudação)

Letter map: he vs hey

Shared letters muted; letters that set he and hey apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

3 ch

hey

Role in the sentence - he and hey

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: he is apronoun and heyanintj. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “he” sits inside “hey”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13483, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

he is recorded at frequency rank #7,293, classified as apron. 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 13483, this pair ranks #58,844 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of he vs hey

Shared letters: eh. Private to "he": -. Private to "hey": y.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "he" for "hey" ever safe?

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

Which is more common, "he" or "hey"?

"hey" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,190 in our Portuguese list, against #7,293 for "he". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

Full dictionary entry for "he" 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 #58,844 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"he" and "hey" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "he vs hui". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #58,844 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.