English homophones
despatch/dispatch
"despatch" is a noun; "dispatch" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "despatch" arrives as a noun, while "dispatch" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "despatch" is 8 letters, "dispatch" is 8; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across despatch, dispatch: acdhpst. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
despatch
8 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCCVCCC
Inventory acdehpst · private e
dispatch
8 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCCVCCC
Inventory acdhipst · private i
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "despatch" when you mean: Alternative form of dispatch.
- Write "dispatch" when you mean: To send (a shipment) with promptness.
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 (despatch, dispatch). Here's where to go from here.
- "dispatch" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #10,198 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: draft · draught. 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.