English homophones
die/dye
"die" is a verb; "dye" is a noun - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "die" arrives as a verb, while "dye" is a noun. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "die" is 3 letters, "dye" is 3; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across die, dye: de. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
die
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory dei · private i
dye
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory dey · private y
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "die" when you mean: To stop living; to become dead; to undergo death.
- Write "dye" when you mean: A colourant, especially one that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is applied.
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (die, dye). Here's where to go from here.
- "die" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #902 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: demon · daemon. 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.