English
hey
Hey comes from Middle English hey, from Old English *hē, an interjection probably of natural, sound-symbolic origin.
- Old Englishc. 450–1150*hē1reconstructed
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500hey1
- Englishearliest quotation 1900hey1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English hey
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1900, Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim: “"Who 's a cur - now - hey?"”.
Lineage
- Old Englishc. 450–1150*hēWiktionary, English heyreconstructed
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500heyWiktionary, English hey
- Englishearliest quotation 1900heyWiktionary, English hey. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1900, Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim: “"Who 's a cur - now - hey?"”
The story
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!’). 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).
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with hey, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *ḱís ‘this (here)’
- cis ← *ki
through Proto-Germanic *hiz ‘this, this one’
Explore everything descended from *hē →
Another origin of hey
- Frankishc. 250–700*haggjureconstructed
- Medieval Latinc. 600–1500haga
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400haie
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600haye‘hedge’
- Frenchc. 1600–presenthaie‘hedge’
- Englishtodayhey
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Today it means
intj An exclamation to get attention.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “hey”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Old English *hē / hey