English homophones
coal/cole
"coal" (#3,048 written frequency) beats "cole" (#5,308) in this 2-word /kəʊl/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /kəʊl/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "coal" leads at #3,048, with "cole" trailing at #5,308.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "co" then splits - "coal" (4 letters) vs "cole" (4).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across coal, cole: clo. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
coal
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory aclo · private a
cole
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV
Inventory celo · private e
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "coal" when you mean: A black or brownish black rock formed from prehistoric plant remains, composed largely of carbon and burned as a fuel.
- Write "cole" when you mean: Cabbage.
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 (coal, cole). Here's where to go from here.
- "coal" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #3,048 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: civilized · civilised. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "coal, cole" 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.