English homophones

fat/phat

"fat" (#1,482 written frequency) beats "phat" (#37,626) in this 2-word /ˈfæt/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage

Frequency splits the cluster

These 2 spellings keep the same /ˈfæt/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "fat" leads at #1,482, with "phat" trailing at #37,626.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • No shared spelling stem: "fat" is 3 letters, "phat" is 4; only the sound ties them.

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

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

  • fat

    3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC

    Inventory aft · private f

  • phat

    4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CCVC

    Inventory ahpt · private hp

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "fat" when you mean: Carrying more fat than usual on one's body; plump; not lean or thin.
  • Write "phat" when you mean: Excellent; cool; very good.

Known mistypes of these spellings

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

  • phathpat · phatt · phhat · phta · pphat

Each spelling

fat

adjective · /ˈfæt/ · #1,482 frequency

Carrying more fat than usual on one's body; plump; not lean or thin.

phat

adjective · /fæt/ · #37,626 frequency

Excellent; cool; very good.

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

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

  • "fat" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #1,482 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: flow · Flo. Nearby cluster
  • Each spelling in "fat, phat" 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