English homophones
borough/burgh
"borough" (#9,140 written frequency) beats "burgh" (#34,413) in this 2-word /ˈbʌ.ɹə/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /ˈbʌ.ɹə/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "borough" leads at #9,140, with "burgh" trailing at #34,413.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "borough" is 7 letters, "burgh" is 5; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across borough, burgh: bghru. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
borough
7 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVCVVCC
Inventory bghoru · private o
burgh
5 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCCC
Inventory bghru · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "borough" when you mean: A fortified town.
- Write "burgh" when you mean: a small mound, often used in reference to tumuli (mostly restricted to place names).
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 (borough, burgh). Here's where to go from here.
- "borough" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #9,140 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: beta · beater. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "borough, burgh" 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.