English homophones
lo/low
"lo" is an intj; "low" is an adjective - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "lo" arrives as an intj, while "low" is an adjective. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "lo" then splits - "lo" (2 letters) vs "low" (3).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across lo, low: lo. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
lo
2 letters · 1 vowels · shape CV
Inventory lo · no private letters vs siblings
low
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory low · private w
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "lo" when you mean: look, see, behold (in an imperative sense).
- Write "low" when you mean: Situated close to, or even below, the ground or another normal reference plane; not high or lofty.
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (lo, low). Here's where to go from here.
- "low" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #468 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: Laura · Lara. 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.