Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- interj. Used to attract attention or to express surprise, appreciation, wonder, or pleasure.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- An exclamation expressing pleasure, surprise, etc.: also used as a call to attract attention and as an interrogative.
- An obsolete form of high.
- n. An obsolete form of hie.
- n. An obsolete or rare form of hay.
Wiktionary
- interj. An exclamation to get attention.
- interj. A protest or reprimand.
- interj. An expression of surprise.
- interj. An informal greeting, similar to hi (used in the US, Australia and Canada).
- interj. A request for repetition or explanation; an expression of confusion (see also eh, huh).
- interj. A meaningless beat marker or extra, filler syllable in musical lyrics.
- n. country dancing A choreographic figure in which the dancers weave between one another.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete High.
- interj. An exclamation of joy, surprise, or encouragement.
- interj. A cry to set dogs on.
Etymologies
- From Middle English hey, hei, also without h- in ey, from Old English *hē, ēa (interjection), attested as first element in Old English hēlā, ēalā ("O!, alas!, oh!, lo!"). Cognate with Dutch he, hei ("hi, hey"), German hei ("hey, wow"), Danish and Swedish hej ("hello, hey"), Faroese hey ("hey, hello"), Icelandic hei ("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 (hei), Finnish hei, Unami hè, and Mandarin Chinese 哎 (āi), and various sound-alikes as Roman eho, Greek εἴα (eia), Latin eia. See also hello. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Ah ha, hey, hey� WHITEHEAD: In the 20-some years since then, Wadada Leo Smith has expanded his audience by reviving electric Miles Davis music with guitarist Henry Kaiser.”
“For perhaps, that will be sufficient to have these fatties change their eating life style along with keeping the issue in the light by using the phrase "hey fatso" like we use to in this country.”
“I think there is a little mistake in the title hey … didn't you guys / TC slam the flip phone in a product review awhile back!!”
“I remember I said I was gonna follow her before on Twitter (hey, is what I do, LOL!!) but do you know why I don't?”
“But the man finally looks up anyway, and you look back at him to say, hey is this your bag, because if it's not, whose bag is it?”
“And if the Jets and Ravens should both win ... hey, the AFC championship would be played in Giants Stadium.”
“Pavin ... hey, isn't that the wife of the U.S. captain?”
The Washington Post: U.S. Ryder Cup team moves on after rainsuits fail in Welsh rain
“And then just now it hit me again -- hey, I'm playing with Star Wars.”
“[A] cue to idiot punk asking: hey is that Batman in the corner?”
New KICK-ASS Poster Kicks Ass! Plus Check Out All the Previous Posters – Collider.com
“With Batman and Robin - hey, I thought it was a really cool read.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hey’.
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one word exclamations
keep it rated G please, thanks!
( open list, randomness )zoiks, sheesh, gosh, shucks, jeez, woot, heck, thunderation, oops, gadzooks, what, hey and 90 more...
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FUN - Beatles song titles
Typical words from Beatles song titles. Can you recreate the titles?
(Grammatical words have been omitted)another, three, place, work, eyes, new, said, give, face, day, going, like and 388 more...
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3-letter Scrabble Words
aah, aal, aas, aba, abo, abs, aby, ace, act, add, ado, ads and 995 more...
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Greetings
Things I say to people!
hi, hello, how are you doing, top of the day to..., hola, hey, what are you doing, what's that stran..., get out of the ba..., you again, is your homework ..., where's my other ... and 31 more...
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test2029
humblebrag, bar, foo, hotel, california, FO, Mint, Shiznit, aw, sexy, BUMMERS, thatch and 29 more...
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Georgia on my mind
Here I'm thinking of the state in the southeast United States, of course.
Georgia, georgia, Georgia on my mind, Atlanta, Tucker, Sherman's March, Savannah, Augusta, Macon, Columbus, Rome, Chamblee and 15 more...
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Interjections spelled with only H's a...
ha!, aha!, ho ho ho!, hee hee!, oho!, uh-oh, heh, heh-heh, oh, ah, huh, eh and 12 more...
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Doo-it-yourself Doowop List
Just add a few of these words and phrases together to create your own doowop song.
doo wop, doo, wop, lama, shama, dong, ding, dooooo -wop-wop, shama lama, bom-bom-bom, doo-wop, shang-a-lang and 35 more...
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ROT13 Pairs
Nabbed from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROT-13#Letter_games_and_net_culture: words that become other existing words (or failing that, acronyms) when a Caesar shift of 13 places is applied to them.
aha, nun, ant, nag, balk, onyx, bar, one, barf, ones, be, or and 64 more...
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Twitter faves
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
gonk, nerking, guap, gimp, fabulous, dabble, fabilicious, tragic, zooted, hey, cheekini, nugget and 457 more... -
Chainlink's Words
hat, opalescent, opal, emerald, sapphire, scythe, carnival, calliope, brilliant, awesome, feather, fantastic and 268 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
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the hotlist
short, sweet, epic, catchy, sassy, sexy & sizzling.
( personal list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/...zing, epic, win, fail, hot, warp, times, clip, onyx, wonky, pwn, leet and 1493 more...
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Quotidian words
a diary of sorts
crown, dentist, purple, anxiety, relief, day, garbage, cat, a, as, tidy, ha and 54 more...
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greetings & salutations
of one word
greetings, salutations, hello, hola, 'ello, g'day, hiya, hi, 'sup, howdy, yo, bonjour and 14 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hey.
ruzuzu Hey--check out the tags. Jun 16, 2011
ruzuzu Hey, yeah--I know. I use it mostly when I want to acknowledge someone I know, but don't have time to stop and chat. Nov 13, 2010
chained_bear Hey, I didn't know it was chiefly southern. Aug 4, 2010
ruzuzu The American Heritage Dictionary has a "Regional Note" which tells us the following:
"Traditionally, hey was just an exclamation. Sometimes it expressed delight, sometimes a warning. Nowadays we find it used for emphasis as well, especially in the expression but hey. It is also a greeting. It is a short, colloquial version of How are you? and thus close kin to the informal salutation hi, which it seems to be replacing in many situations. Until recently, this greeting had a distinctly Southern flavor. The national survey conducted in the 1960s by the Dictionary of American Regional English found hey as a greeting restricted chiefly to Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. The friendly hey has since spread throughout the United States." Aug 2, 2010