hey

Meaning

1. An exclamation to get attention.
2. A protest or reprimand.
3. An expression of surprise.
4. An informal greeting, similar to hi.
5. A request for repetition or explanation; an expression of confusion.
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.
7. A meaningless beat marker or extra, filler syllable in song lyrics.

hello

you there

tell me

can it be that

a-hey

cut it out

stop it

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/heɪ/

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.