English homophones

minnow/mino

"minnow" (#46,069 written frequency) beats "mino" (#47,197) in this 2-word /ˈmɪnəʊ/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage

Frequency splits the cluster

These 2 spellings keep the same /ˈmɪnəʊ/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "minnow" leads at #46,069, with "mino" trailing at #47,197.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • Shared stem "min" then splits - "minnow" (6 letters) vs "mino" (4).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across minnow, mino: imno. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • minnow

    6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCCVC

    Inventory imnow · private w

  • mino

    4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV

    Inventory imno · no private letters vs siblings

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "minnow" when you mean: Any small fish.
  • Write "mino" when you mean: A traditional Japanese raincoat made from straw.

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

  • minnowimnnow · minnoww · minnwo · minonw · minow · mminnow
  • minoimno · minno · mion · mmino · mnio

Each spelling

minnow

noun · /ˈmɪnəʊ/ · #46,069 frequency

Any small fish.

mino

noun · /ˈmɪnəʊ/ · #47,197 frequency

A traditional Japanese raincoat made from straw.

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (minnow, mino). Here's where to go from here.

  • "minnow" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #46,069 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: McEwen · McEwan. Nearby cluster
  • Each spelling in "minnow, mino" 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list