English homophones
baa/bar/barre
"bar" (#1,213 written frequency) beats "barre" (#26,008) in this 3-word /bɑː/ cluster. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 3 spellings keep the same /bɑː/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "bar" leads at #1,213, with "barre" trailing at #26,008.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Single-letter fork: "baa" keeps a, "bar" writes r at letter 3.
- Shared stem "ba" then splits - "baa" (3 letters) vs "barre" (5).
- Shared stem "bar" then splits - "bar" (3 letters) vs "barre" (5).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across baa, bar, barre: ab. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
baa
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory ab · no private letters vs siblings
bar
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory abr · private r
barre
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCCV
Inventory aber · private er
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "baa" when you mean: The characteristic cry or bleating of a sheep.
- Write "bar" when you mean: A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length.
- Write "barre" when you mean: A handrail fixed to a wall used for ballet exercises.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
- barre ← abrre · barer · bbarre · brare
Each spelling
noun · /bɑː/ · #1,213 frequency
A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length.
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 3-spelling cluster (baa, bar, barre). Here's where to go from here.
- "bar" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #1,213 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 3 spellings ranks #30 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 3-spelling cluster: be · bee · Bea. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "baa, bar, barre" 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.