English homophones
lock/Locke
"lock" is a noun; "Locke" is a name - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "lock" arrives as a noun, while "Locke" is a name. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "lock" then splits - "lock" (4 letters) vs "Locke" (5).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across lock, Locke: cklo. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
lock
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory cklo · no private letters vs siblings
Locke
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCCV
Inventory ceklo · private e
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "lock" when you mean: Something used for fastening, which can only be opened with a key or combination.
- Write "Locke" when you mean: An English surname — famously held by
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 (lock, Locke). Here's where to go from here.
- "lock" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #2,954 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: lai · lye. 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.