English homophones
pars/parse
"pars" is a noun; "parse" 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: "pars" arrives as a noun, while "parse" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "pars" then splits - "pars" (4 letters) vs "parse" (5).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across pars, parse: aprs. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
pars
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory aprs · no private letters vs siblings
parse
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCCV
Inventory aeprs · private e
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "pars" when you mean: plural of par
- Write "parse" when you mean: To resolve (a sentence, etc.) into its elements, pointing out the several parts of speech, and their relation to each other by agreement …
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
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (pars, parse). Here's where to go from here.
- "parse" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #29,782 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: Patterson · Paterson. 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.