English homophones

cinque/sink/sync

"cinque" is a noun; "sink" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage 2026-09-03

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "cinque" arrives as a noun, while "sink" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

No shared spelling stem: "cinque" is 6 letters, "sink" is 4; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "cinque" is 6 letters, "sync" is 4; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "sink" is 4 letters, "sync" is 4; only the sound ties them.

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across cinque, sink, sync: n. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

cinque
6 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVCCVV
Inventory ceinqu · private ceiqu
sink
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory ikns · private iks
sync
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory cnsy · private csy

Pick the spelling from the meaning

Write "cinque" when you mean: A card, die, or domino with five spots or pips.
Write "sink" when you mean: To move or be moved into something.
Write "sync" when you mean: Clipping of synchronization or synchrony.

Known mistypes of these spellings

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

cinque ← ccinque · cinnque · cinqeu · cinqque · cinuqe · ciqnue
sink ← isnk · sinkk · sinnk · snik · ssink
sync ← snyc · ssync · sycn · syncc · synnc · syync

Each spelling

cinque

noun · /sɪŋk/ · #49,253 frequency

A card, die, or domino with five spots or pips.

sink

verb · /ˈsɪŋk/ · #5,081 frequency

To move or be moved into something.

sync

noun · /sɪŋk/ · #8,868 frequency

Clipping of synchronization or synchrony.

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 3-spelling cluster (cinque, sink, sync). Here's where to go from here.

"sink" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #5,081 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: citing · sighting · siting. 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.