English homophones
callous/callus
"callous" is an adjective; "callus" is a noun - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "callous" arrives as an adjective, while "callus" is a noun. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "call" then splits - "callous" (7 letters) vs "callus" (6).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across callous, callus: aclsu. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
callous
7 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVCCVVC
Inventory aclosu · private o
callus
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCCVC
Inventory aclsu · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "callous" when you mean: Emotionally hardened; unfeeling and indifferent to the suffering/feelings of others.
- Write "callus" when you mean: A hardened area of the skin (especially on the foot or hand) caused by repeated friction, wear or use.
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 (callous, callus). Here's where to go from here.
- "callous" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #26,355 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: CD · seedy. 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.