English homophones

an/Ann/Anne/iron

"an" is an article; "Ann" is a name - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #5 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage 2026-09-03

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "an" arrives as an article, while "Ann" is a name. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

Shared stem "an" then splits - "an" (2 letters) vs "Ann" (3).
Shared stem "an" then splits - "an" (2 letters) vs "Anne" (4).
No shared spelling stem: "an" is 2 letters, "iron" is 4; only the sound ties them.
Shared stem "ann" then splits - "Ann" (3 letters) vs "Anne" (4).
No shared spelling stem: "Ann" is 3 letters, "iron" is 4; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "Anne" is 4 letters, "iron" is 4; only the sound ties them.

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across an, Ann, Anne, iron: n. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

an
2 letters · 1 vowels · shape VC
Inventory an · private a
Ann
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape VCC
Inventory an · private a
Anne
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape VCCV
Inventory aen · private ae
iron
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape VCVC
Inventory inor · private ior

Pick the spelling from the meaning

Write "an" when you mean: Form of a (all article senses).
Write "Ann" when you mean: A female given name from Hebrew.
Write "Anne" when you mean: A female given name from French.
Write "iron" when you mean: A common, inexpensive metal, silvery grey when untarnished, that rusts, is attracted by magnets, and is used in making steel: a chemical …

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

Anne ← ane · anen · nane
iron ← iorn · irno · ironn · irron · rion

Each spelling

article · /ˈæn/ · #30 frequency

Form of a (all article senses).

Ann

name · /æn/ · #3,923 frequency

A female given name from Hebrew.

Anne

name · /æn/ · #4,136 frequency

A female given name from French.

iron

noun · /æːn/ · #1,866 frequency

A common, inexpensive metal, silvery grey when untarnished, that rusts, is attracted by magnets, and is used in making steel: a chemical element having atomic number 26 and symbol Fe.

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 4-spelling cluster (an, Ann, Anne, iron). Here's where to go from here.

"an" is the most frequent headword in this 4-spelling cluster (rank #30 in English). Full entry
Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 4 spellings ranks #5 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
Explore a nearby 4-spelling cluster: aw · awe · aww · oar. Nearby cluster
Grammar often disambiguates this cluster, match the meaning to the part of speech before picking a spelling. Pick by meaning

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.