English homophones
baits/bates
"baits" is a noun; "bates" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "baits" arrives as a noun, while "bates" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "ba" then splits - "baits" (5 letters) vs "bates" (5).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across baits, bates: abst. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
baits
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVCC
Inventory abist · private i
bates
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCVC
Inventory abest · private e
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "baits" when you mean: plural of bait
- Write "bates" when you mean: third-person singular simple present indicative of bate
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 (baits, bates). Here's where to go from here.
- "bates" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #12,189 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: blunt · Blount. 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.