English homophones

8/ait/ate/eight

"8" is a verb; "ait" is a noun - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #5 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage 2026-09-03

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "8" arrives as a verb, while "ait" is a noun. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

No shared spelling stem: "8" is 1 letters, "ait" is 3; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "8" is 1 letters, "ate" is 3; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "8" is 1 letters, "eight" is 5; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "ait" is 3 letters, "ate" is 3; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "ait" is 3 letters, "eight" is 5; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "ate" is 3 letters, "eight" is 5; only the sound ties them.

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across 8, ait, ate, eight: none. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

8
0 letters · 0 vowels · shape
Inventory - · no private letters vs siblings
ait
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape VVC
Inventory ait · private ait
ate
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape VCV
Inventory aet · private aet
eight
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape VVCCC
Inventory eghit · private eghit

Pick the spelling from the meaning

Write "8" when you mean: Abbreviation of ate.
Write "ait" when you mean: An island in a river, especially the River Thames in England.
Write "ate" when you mean: simple past of eat
Write "eight" when you mean: A numerical value equal to 8; the number occurring after seven and before nine.

Known mistypes of these spellings

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

eight ← egiht · eigght · eighht · eightt · eigth · eihgt

Each spelling

verb · /eɪt/ · #312 frequency

Abbreviation of ate.

ait

noun · /eɪt/ · #38,716 frequency

An island in a river, especially the River Thames in England.

ate

verb · /eɪt/ · #3,999 frequency

simple past of eat

eight

num · /eɪt/ · #1,016 frequency

A numerical value equal to 8; the number occurring after seven and before nine.

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 4-spelling cluster (8, ait, ate, eight). Here's where to go from here.

"8" is the most frequent headword in this 4-spelling cluster (rank #312 in English). Full entry
Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 4 spellings ranks #5 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
Explore a nearby 4-spelling cluster: key · quay · kee · cay. 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.