English homophones
fay/fey
"fay" is a verb; "fey" is an adjective - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "fay" arrives as a verb, while "fey" is an adjective. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "fay" is 3 letters, "fey" is 3; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across fay, fey: fy. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
fay
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory afy · private a
fey
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory efy · private e
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "fay" when you mean: To fit, to add.
- Write "fey" when you mean: About to die; doomed; on the verge of sudden or violent death.
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (fay, fey). Here's where to go from here.
- "fay" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #19,836 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: faucet · Fawcett. 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.