English homophones
pic/pick
"pick" (#881 written frequency) beats "pic" (#5,151) in this 2-word /pɪk/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /pɪk/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "pick" leads at #881, with "pic" trailing at #5,151.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "pic" then splits - "pic" (3 letters) vs "pick" (4).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across pic, pick: cip. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
pic
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory cip · no private letters vs siblings
pick
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory cikp · private k
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "pic" when you mean: A picture, especially a photographic image.
- Write "pick" when you mean: A tool used for digging; a pickaxe.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
- pick ← ipck · pcik · picck · pickk · pikc · ppick
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (pic, pick). Here's where to go from here.
- "pick" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #881 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: people's · peoples. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "pic, pick" 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.