English homophones
aides/AIDS
"AIDS" (#4,649 written frequency) beats "aides" (#16,840) in this 2-word /eɪdz/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /eɪdz/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "AIDS" leads at #4,649, with "aides" trailing at #16,840.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "aid" then splits - "aides" (5 letters) vs "AIDS" (4).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across aides, AIDS: adis. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
aides
5 letters · 3 vowels · shape VVCVC
Inventory adeis · private e
AIDS
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape VVCC
Inventory adis · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "aides" when you mean: plural of aide
- Write "AIDS" when you mean: Acronym of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (aides, AIDS). Here's where to go from here.
- "AIDS" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #4,649 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 2 spellings ranks #133 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 2-spelling cluster: air · ere. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "aides, AIDS" has its own headword page with definition, IPA, and misspelling variants. First entry
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.