English homophones
liar/lyre
"liar" (#6,931 written frequency) beats "lyre" (#46,595) in this 2-word /ˈlaɪ.ə/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /ˈlaɪ.ə/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "liar" leads at #6,931, with "lyre" trailing at #46,595.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "liar" is 4 letters, "lyre" is 4; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across liar, lyre: lr. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
liar
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory ailr · private ai
lyre
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV
Inventory elry · private ey
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "liar" when you mean: Someone who tells a lie; especially, a person who frequently lies.
- Write "lyre" when you mean: An ancient stringed musical instrument (a yoke lute chordophone) of Greek origin, consisting of two arms extending from a body to a cross…
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
noun · /ˈlaɪ.ə/ · #6,931 frequency
Someone who tells a lie; especially, a person who frequently lies.
noun · /ˈlaɪ.ə/ · #46,595 frequency
An ancient stringed musical instrument (a yoke lute chordophone) of Greek origin, consisting of two arms extending from a body to a crossbar (a yoke), and strings, parallel to the soundboard, connecting the body to the yoke.
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (liar, lyre). Here's where to go from here.
- "liar" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #6,931 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: lobe · Loeb. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "liar, lyre" 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.