English homophones
mica/Micah
"mica" is a noun; "Micah" 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: "mica" arrives as a noun, while "Micah" is a name. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "mica" then splits - "mica" (4 letters) vs "Micah" (5).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across mica, Micah: acim. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
mica
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV
Inventory acim · no private letters vs siblings
Micah
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCVC
Inventory achim · private h
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "mica" when you mean: Any of a group of hydrous aluminosilicate minerals characterized by highly perfect cleavage, so that they readily separate into very thin…
- Write "Micah" when you mean: A book of the Old Testament of Bible, and of the Tanakh.
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 · /ˈmaɪ.kə/ · #29,376 frequency
Any of a group of hydrous aluminosilicate minerals characterized by highly perfect cleavage, so that they readily separate into very thin leaves, more or less elastic.
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (mica, Micah). Here's where to go from here.
- "Micah" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #24,515 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: mall · maul. 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.