English homophones
council/counsel
"council" (#866 written frequency) beats "counsel" (#5,487) in this 2-word /ˈkaʊn.səl/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /ˈkaʊn.səl/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "council" leads at #866, with "counsel" trailing at #5,487.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "coun" then splits - "council" (7 letters) vs "counsel" (7).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across council, counsel: clnou. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
council
7 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVVCCVC
Inventory cilnou · private i
counsel
7 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVVCCVC
Inventory celnosu · private es
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "council" when you mean: A committee that leads or governs (e.g. city council, student council).
- Write "counsel" when you mean: The exchange of opinions and advice especially in legal issues; consultation.
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 (council, counsel). Here's where to go from here.
- "council" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #866 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: series · Ceres. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "council, counsel" 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.