English homophones
nao/nau/now
"nao" is a noun; "now" is an adjective - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "nao" arrives as a noun, while "now" is an adjective. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Single-letter fork: "nao" keeps o, "nau" writes u at letter 3.
- No shared spelling stem: "nao" is 3 letters, "now" is 3; only the sound ties them.
- No shared spelling stem: "nau" is 3 letters, "now" is 3; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across nao, nau, now: n. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
nao
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory ano · private ao
nau
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory anu · private au
now
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory now · private ow
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "nao" when you mean: A Spanish or Portuguese carrack.
- Write "nau" when you mean: Synonym of carrack.
- Write "now" when you mean: Present; current.
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 3-spelling cluster (nao, nau, now). Here's where to go from here.
- "now" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #72 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 3 spellings ranks #30 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 3-spelling cluster: nicks · nix · Nyx. 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.