English homophones

beau/beaux/bo/bow

"beau" is a noun; "bo" is an intj - 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: "beau" arrives as a noun, while "bo" is an intj. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

Shared stem "beau" then splits - "beau" (4 letters) vs "beaux" (5).
No shared spelling stem: "beau" is 4 letters, "bo" is 2; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "beau" is 4 letters, "bow" is 3; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "beaux" is 5 letters, "bo" is 2; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "beaux" is 5 letters, "bow" is 3; only the sound ties them.
Shared stem "bo" then splits - "bo" (2 letters) vs "bow" (3).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across beau, beaux, bo, bow: b. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

beau
4 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVVV
Inventory abeu · private aeu
beaux
5 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVVVC
Inventory abeux · private aeux
bo
2 letters · 1 vowels · shape CV
Inventory bo · private o
bow
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory bow · private ow

Pick the spelling from the meaning

Write "beau" when you mean: A man with a reputation for fine dress and etiquette; a dandy or fop.
Write "beaux" when you mean: plural of beau
Write "bo" when you mean: An exclamation used to startle or frighten.
Write "bow" when you mean: A weapon made of a curved piece of wood or other flexible material whose ends are connected by a string, used for shooting arrows.

Known mistypes of these spellings

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

beau ← baeu · bbeau · beua · ebau
beaux ← baeux · bbeaux · beauxx · beaxu · beuax · ebaux

Each spelling

beau

noun · /bəʊ/ · #13,285 frequency

A man with a reputation for fine dress and etiquette; a dandy or fop.

beaux

noun · /bəʊ/ · #40,142 frequency

plural of beau

intj · /bəʊ/ · #7,100 frequency

An exclamation used to startle or frighten.

bow

noun · /bəʊ/ · #4,287 frequency

A weapon made of a curved piece of wood or other flexible material whose ends are connected by a string, used for shooting arrows.

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 4-spelling cluster (beau, beaux, bo, bow). Here's where to go from here.

"bow" is the most frequent headword in this 4-spelling cluster (rank #4,287 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: by · buy · bye · bi. 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.