English homophones
lea/lee/leigh/li
"lee" (#1,905 written frequency) beats "li" (#4,685) in this 4-word /liː/ cluster. Size rank #5 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 4 spellings keep the same /liː/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "lee" leads at #1,905, with "li" trailing at #4,685.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Single-letter fork: "lea" keeps a, "lee" writes e at letter 3.
- Shared stem "le" then splits - "lea" (3 letters) vs "leigh" (5).
- No shared spelling stem: "lea" is 3 letters, "li" is 2; only the sound ties them.
- Shared stem "le" then splits - "lee" (3 letters) vs "leigh" (5).
- No shared spelling stem: "lee" is 3 letters, "li" is 2; only the sound ties them.
- No shared spelling stem: "leigh" is 5 letters, "li" is 2; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across lea, lee, leigh, li: l. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
lea
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory ael · private ae
lee
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory el · private e
leigh
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVCC
Inventory eghil · private eghi
li
2 letters · 1 vowels · shape CV
Inventory il · private i
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "lea" when you mean: An open field, meadow, pasture.
- Write "lee" when you mean: A protected cove or harbor, out of the wind.
- Write "leigh" when you mean: A meadow.
- Write "li" when you mean: The Chinese mile, a traditional unit of distance equal to 1500 chis or 150 zhangs, now standardized as a half-kilometer (500 meters).
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
- leigh ← eligh · legih · leiggh · leighh · leihg · liegh
Each spelling
noun · /liː/ · #4,685 frequency
The Chinese mile, a traditional unit of distance equal to 1500 chis or 150 zhangs, now standardized as a half-kilometer (500 meters).
Nearby English homophone groups
- Lynn · lin · lyn · linn4-spelling cluster
- lay · lei · ley · Leh4-spelling cluster
- Neil · Neal · kneel · Neale4-spelling cluster
- we · wee · Wii · oui4-spelling cluster
- nor · naw · Nord · gnaw4-spelling cluster
- gale · Gail · Gayle · Gael4-spelling cluster
- right · write · wright · rite4-spelling cluster
- rains · reigns · reins · Raines4-spelling cluster
What to do next
You've reviewed the 4-spelling cluster (lea, lee, leigh, li). Here's where to go from here.
- "lee" is the most frequent headword in this 4-spelling cluster (rank #1,905 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: Lynn · lin · lyn · linn. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "lea, lee, leigh, li" 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.