English homophones
ho/hoa/hoe
"ho" is an intj; "hoe" is a noun - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "ho" arrives as an intj, while "hoe" is a noun. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "ho" then splits - "ho" (2 letters) vs "hoa" (3).
- Shared stem "ho" then splits - "ho" (2 letters) vs "hoe" (3).
- Single-letter fork: "hoa" keeps a, "hoe" writes e at letter 3.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across ho, hoa, hoe: ho. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
ho
2 letters · 1 vowels · shape CV
Inventory ho · no private letters vs siblings
hoa
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory aho · private a
hoe
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory eho · private e
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "ho" when you mean: Used to attract attention to something sighted, usually by lookouts.
- Write "hoa" when you mean: ho; hey; a call for attention
- Write "hoe" when you mean: Any of various tools for scraping, scratching, digging, or stirring soil or other materials.
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 3-spelling cluster (ho, hoa, hoe). Here's where to go from here.
- "ho" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #4,951 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 3 spellings ranks #30 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 3-spelling cluster: ha · hah · har. 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.