English homophones

drier/dryer

"dryer" (#14,111 written frequency) beats "drier" (#22,652) in this 2-word /ˈdɹaɪɚ/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage

Frequency splits the cluster

These 2 spellings keep the same /ˈdɹaɪɚ/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "dryer" leads at #14,111, with "drier" trailing at #22,652.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • Shared stem "dr" then splits - "drier" (5 letters) vs "dryer" (5).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across drier, dryer: der. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • drier

    5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVVC

    Inventory deir · private i

  • dryer

    5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVVC

    Inventory dery · private y

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "drier" when you mean: Alternative spelling of dryer.
  • Write "dryer" when you mean: One who, or that which, dries; any device or facility employed to remove water or humidity, e.g. a desiccative

Known mistypes of these spellings

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

  • drierddrier · direr · dreir · drierr · drire · drrier
  • dryerddryer · dreyr · drryer · dryerr · dryre · dryyer

Each spelling

drier

noun · /ˈdɹaɪɚ/ · #22,652 frequency

Alternative spelling of dryer.

dryer

noun · /ˈdɹaɪɚ/ · #14,111 frequency

One who, or that which, dries; any device or facility employed to remove water or humidity, e.g. a desiccative

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (drier, dryer). Here's where to go from here.

  • "dryer" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #14,111 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: damn · dam. Nearby cluster
  • Each spelling in "drier, dryer" 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list