English homophones

Chile/chili/chilli/chilly

"Chile" is a name; "chili" is a noun - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #5 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage 2026-09-03

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "Chile" arrives as a name, while "chili" is a noun. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

Single-letter fork: "Chile" keeps e, "chili" writes i at letter 5.
Shared stem "chil" then splits - "Chile" (5 letters) vs "chilli" (6).
Shared stem "chil" then splits - "Chile" (5 letters) vs "chilly" (6).
Shared stem "chil" then splits - "chili" (5 letters) vs "chilli" (6).
Shared stem "chil" then splits - "chili" (5 letters) vs "chilly" (6).
Single-letter fork: "chilli" keeps i, "chilly" writes y at letter 6.

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across Chile, chili, chilli, chilly: chil. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

Chile
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVCV
Inventory cehil · private e
chili
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVCV
Inventory chil · no private letters vs siblings
chilli
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVCCV
Inventory chil · no private letters vs siblings
chilly
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVCCV
Inventory chily · private y

Pick the spelling from the meaning

Write "Chile" when you mean: A country in South America. Official name: Republic of Chile. Capital and largest city: Santiago.
Write "chili" when you mean: The pungent, spicy fresh or dried fruit of any of several cultivated varieties of capsicum peppers, used in cooking.
Write "chilli" when you mean: Alternative spelling of chili
Write "chilly" when you mean: Cold enough to cause discomfort.

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

Chile ← cchile · chhile · chiel · chille · chlie · cihle
chili ← cchili · chhili · chiil · chlii · cihli · hcili
chilli ← cchilli · chhilli · chilil · chlili · cihlli · hcilli
chilly ← cchilly · chhilly · chillyy · chily · chilyl · chlily

Each spelling

Chile

name · /ˈt͡ʃɪl.i/ · #6,448 frequency

A country in South America. Official name: Republic of Chile. Capital and largest city: Santiago.

chili

noun · /ˈt͡ʃɪli/ · #10,663 frequency

The pungent, spicy fresh or dried fruit of any of several cultivated varieties of capsicum peppers, used in cooking.

chilli

noun · /ˈt͡ʃɪli/ · #19,786 frequency

Alternative spelling of chili

chilly

adjective · /ˈt͡ʃɪli/ · #14,916 frequency

Cold enough to cause discomfort.

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 4-spelling cluster (Chile, chili, chilli, chilly). Here's where to go from here.

"Chile" is the most frequent headword in this 4-spelling cluster (rank #6,448 in English). Full entry
Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 4 spellings ranks #5 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
Explore a nearby 4-spelling cluster: chew · chu · choo · Qiu. 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.