English homophones
cel/cell/sell
"cel" is a noun; "sell" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "cel" arrives as a noun, while "sell" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "cel" then splits - "cel" (3 letters) vs "cell" (4).
- No shared spelling stem: "cel" is 3 letters, "sell" is 4; only the sound ties them.
- No shared spelling stem: "cell" is 4 letters, "sell" is 4; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across cel, cell, sell: el. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
cel
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory cel · private c
cell
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory cel · private c
sell
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory els · private s
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "cel" when you mean: A piece of celluloid on which has been drawn a frame of an animated film.
- Write "cell" when you mean: A single-room dwelling for a hermit.
- Write "sell" when you mean: To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.
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 3-spelling cluster (cel, cell, sell). Here's where to go from here.
- "sell" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #1,128 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 3 spellings ranks #30 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 3-spelling cluster: sent · cent · scent. 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.