English homophones
leak/leek
"leak" (#6,160 written frequency) beats "leek" (#34,158) in this 2-word /liːk/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /liːk/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "leak" leads at #6,160, with "leek" trailing at #34,158.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "le" then splits - "leak" (4 letters) vs "leek" (4).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across leak, leek: ekl. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
leak
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory aekl · private a
leek
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory ekl · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "leak" when you mean: A crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape.
- Write "leek" when you mean: A vegetable of variety Allium ampeloprasum, having edible leaves and an onion-like bulb but with a milder flavour than the onion.
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 (leak, leek). Here's where to go from here.
- "leak" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #6,160 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: Lyle · lisle. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "leak, leek" 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.