English homophones
boar/bore
"boar" is a noun; "bore" 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: "boar" arrives as a noun, while "bore" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "bo" then splits - "boar" (4 letters) vs "bore" (4).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across boar, bore: bor. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
boar
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory abor · private a
bore
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV
Inventory beor · private e
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "boar" when you mean: A wild boar (Sus scrofa), the wild ancestor of the domesticated pig.
- Write "bore" when you mean: To inspire boredom in somebody.
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 (boar, bore). Here's where to go from here.
- "bore" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #7,889 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: bear · bare. 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.