English homophones
leed/lied
"lied" (#5,059 written frequency) beats "leed" (#40,780) in this 2-word /liːd/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /liːd/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "lied" leads at #5,059, with "leed" trailing at #40,780.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "leed" is 4 letters, "lied" is 4; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across leed, lied: del. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
leed
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory del · no private letters vs siblings
lied
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory deil · private i
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "leed" when you mean: Language; tongue.
- Write "lied" when you mean: An art song, usually sung solo in German and accompanied on the piano.
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 (leed, lied). Here's where to go from here.
- "lied" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #5,059 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: loss · los. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "leed, lied" 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.