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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

hey.

An exclamation to get attention.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

intj/heɪ/

  1. An exclamation to get attention.

    informal
    Hey, look at this!
    Hey! Listen!

  2. A protest or reprimand.

    informal
    Hey! Stop that!

  3. An expression of surprise.

    informal
    Hey! This is new!

  4. An informal greeting, similar to hi.

    informal
    Hey! How's it going?

  5. A request for repetition or explanation; an expression of confusion.

    informal
    Hey? How's that?

  6. Used as a tag question, to emphasise what goes before or to request that the listener express an opinion about what has been said.

    informal

  7. A meaningless beat marker or extra, filler syllable in song lyrics.

    informal
    The chorus is "nana na na, nana na na hey hey hey, goodbye".
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/heɪ/

  1. To greet with a "hey"

    informal
Where this word comes from

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.

noun/heɪ/

  1. A choreographic figure in which three or more dancers weave between one another, passing by left and right shoulder alternately.

    informal
Where this word comes from

From French haie (“hedge”), with reference to the weaving patterns used in hedgelaying. Doublet of hedge and quay.

noun/heɪ/

  1. Alternative spelling of he (“Hebrew letter”).

    alt-of · alternative · informal
Where this word comes from

See he.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.