English homophones
Hearst/hurst
"Hearst" is a name; "hurst" is a noun - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "Hearst" arrives as a name, while "hurst" is a noun. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "Hearst" is 6 letters, "hurst" is 5; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across Hearst, hurst: hrst. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
Hearst
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVCCC
Inventory aehrst · private ae
hurst
5 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCCC
Inventory hrstu · private u
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "Hearst" when you mean: A surname.
- Write "hurst" when you mean: A wood or grove.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (Hearst, hurst). Here's where to go from here.
- "hurst" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #25,417 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: heart · hart. 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.