Deutsch homophones
cell/sel/sell
"cell" (#28,129 written frequency) beats "sell" (#28,387) in this 3-word /sɛl/ cluster. Size rank #5 of 483 German groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 3 spellings keep the same /sɛl/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "cell" leads at #28,129, with "sell" trailing at #28,387.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "cell" is 4 letters, "sel" is 3; only the sound ties them.
- No shared spelling stem: "cell" is 4 letters, "sell" is 4; only the sound ties them.
- Shared stem "sel" then splits - "sel" (3 letters) vs "sell" (4).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across cell, sel, sell: el. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
cell
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory cel · private c
sel
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory els · private s
sell
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory els · private s
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "cell" when you mean: Zelle
- Write "sel" when you mean: Salz
- Write "sell" when you mean: Transaktion Ware gegen Geld: Verkauf
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.