English homophones
broach/brooch
"brooch" (#27,388 written frequency) beats "broach" (#45,824) in this 2-word /bɹəʊtʃ/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /bɹəʊtʃ/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "brooch" leads at #27,388, with "broach" trailing at #45,824.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "bro" then splits - "broach" (6 letters) vs "brooch" (6).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across broach, brooch: bchor. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
broach
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVVCC
Inventory abchor · private a
brooch
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVVCC
Inventory bchor · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "broach" when you mean: A series of chisel points mounted on one piece of steel. For example, the toothed stone chisel shown here.
- Write "brooch" when you mean: A piece of ornamental jewellery having a pin allowing it to be fixed to garments worn on the upper body.
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 (broach, brooch). Here's where to go from here.
- "brooch" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #27,388 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: bday · bidet. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "broach, brooch" 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.