English homophones
pair/pare/pear
"pair" is a noun; "pare" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "pair" arrives as a noun, while "pare" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "pa" then splits - "pair" (4 letters) vs "pare" (4).
- No shared spelling stem: "pair" is 4 letters, "pear" is 4; only the sound ties them.
- No shared spelling stem: "pare" is 4 letters, "pear" is 4; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across pair, pare, pear: apr. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
pair
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory aipr · private i
pare
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV
Inventory aepr · private e
pear
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory aepr · private e
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "pair" when you mean: Two alike or identical things taken together; often followed by of.
- Write "pare" when you mean: To remove the outer covering or skin of something with a cutting device, typically a knife.
- Write "pear" when you mean: An edible fruit produced by the pear tree, similar to an apple but typically elongated towards the stem.
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 · /pɛə/ · #1,955 frequency
Two alike or identical things taken together; often followed by of.
verb · /pɛə/ · #37,620 frequency
To remove the outer covering or skin of something with a cutting device, typically a knife.
noun · /pɛə/ · #15,676 frequency
An edible fruit produced by the pear tree, similar to an apple but typically elongated towards the stem.
Nearby English homophone groups
- peaked · piqued · peeked3-spelling cluster
- picks · pics · pix3-spelling cluster
- pain · Payne · pane3-spelling cluster
- p · pee · pea3-spelling cluster
- Paul · poll · pall3-spelling cluster
- peak · peek · pique3-spelling cluster
- Peking · peaking · peeking3-spelling cluster
- prior · Pryor · Praia3-spelling cluster
What to do next
You've reviewed the 3-spelling cluster (pair, pare, pear). Here's where to go from here.
- "pair" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #1,955 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: peaked · piqued · peeked. 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.