English homophones

earn/urn

"earn" is a verb; "urn" is a noun - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage 2026-09-03

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "earn" arrives as a verb, while "urn" is a noun. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

No shared spelling stem: "earn" is 4 letters, "urn" is 3; only the sound ties them.

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

Write "earn" when you mean: To gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work.
Write "urn" when you mean: A vase with a footed base.

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

verb · /ɜːn/ · #3,102 frequency

To gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work.

noun · /ɜːn/ · #21,404 frequency

A vase with a footed base.

What to do next

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

"earn" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #3,102 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: eastern · Easton. 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.