hey
/heɪ/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 5.12 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Hey, look at this!"
- "Hey! Listen!"
- "Hey! Stop that!"
- "Hey! This is new!"
- "Hey! How's it going?"
- "Hey? How's that?"
Etymology
From Middle English hey, hei, also without h- in ey, from Old English *hē, ēa (interjection), attested as first element in hēlā, ēalā (“O!, alas!, oh!, lo!”). Cognate with Dutch hé, hei (“hi, hey”), German hei (“hey, wow”), Danish and Swedish hej (“hello, hey”), Faroese hey (“hey, hello”), Old Norse, Icelandic and Norwegian hei (“hey”), Polish hej (“hey, hello”), Romanian hei, Russian эй (ej, “hey”); see heigh. Probably a natural expression, as may be inferred from its presence with similar meaning in many other unrelated languages: for example, Burmese ဟေး (he:), Finnish hei, Unami hè, and Mandarin 哎 (āi), and various sound-alikes as Ancient Greek εἶα (eîa) and Latin eia, eho, Sanskrit हे (he). See also hello.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: hey, *hē, haie
Usage
Inflected Forms
hay (alternative)
heigh (alternative)
heys (present, singular)
heying (participle, present)
heyed (participle, past)
heyed (past)
heys (plural)