English homophones
cam/cham
"cam" (#6,032 written frequency) beats "cham" (#41,041) in this 2-word /kæm/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /kæm/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "cam" leads at #6,032, with "cham" trailing at #41,041.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "cam" is 3 letters, "cham" is 4; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across cam, cham: acm. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
cam
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory acm · no private letters vs siblings
cham
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CCVC
Inventory achm · private h
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "cam" when you mean: A turning or sliding piece which imparts motion to a rod, lever or block brought into sliding or rolling contact with it.
- Write "cham" when you mean: Archaic spelling of khan.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
- cham ← cahm · ccham · chamm · chham · chma · hcam
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (cam, cham). Here's where to go from here.
- "cam" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #6,032 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: ching · qing. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "cam, cham" 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.