English homophones
base/bass
"base" is a noun; "bass" is an adjective - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "base" arrives as a noun, while "bass" is an adjective. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Single-letter fork: "base" keeps e, "bass" writes s at letter 4.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across base, bass: abs. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
base
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV
Inventory abes · private e
bass
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory abs · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "base" when you mean: Something from which other things extend; a foundation.
- Write "bass" when you mean: Of sound, a voice or an instrument, low in pitch or frequency.
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 (base, bass). Here's where to go from here.
- "base" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #942 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: build · billed. 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.