hey vs hit, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#6,190
“hey” frequency rank: #5,308
“hit” frequency rank: 11498
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	hey	hit
Definition	oi; olá (usada como saudação)	atingir

Letter map: hey vs hit

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

3 ch

hey

3 ch

hit

Role in the sentence - hey and hit

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hey is anintj and hitaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11498, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hey is recorded at frequency rank #6,190, classified as anintj, pronounced /ˈhɛi/. hit is at rank #5,308, tagged as averb.

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 11498, this pair ranks #61,326 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hey vs hit

Shared letters: h. Private to "hey": ey. Private to "hit": it.

"hey" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "hit" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "hey" or "hit" show up more?

"hit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,308 in our Portuguese list, against #6,190 for "hey". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "hey" and "hit".

Full dictionary entry for "hey" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "hit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #61,326 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"hey" and "hit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hey vs hui". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #61,326 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.