English homophones
Maher/mar
"Maher" is a name; "mar" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "Maher" arrives as a name, while "mar" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "ma" then splits - "Maher" (5 letters) vs "mar" (3).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across Maher, mar: amr. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
Maher
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCVC
Inventory aehmr · private eh
mar
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory amr · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "Maher" when you mean: A surname from Irish.
- Write "mar" when you mean: To spoil; to ruin; to scathe; to damage.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
- Maher ← amher · maehr · maherr · mahher · mahre · mhaer
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (Maher, mar). Here's where to go from here.
- "mar" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #5,233 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: Micah · mica. 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.