English homophones
plains/planes
"planes" (#5,532 written frequency) beats "plains" (#8,469) in this 2-word /pleɪnz/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /pleɪnz/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "planes" leads at #5,532, with "plains" trailing at #8,469.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "pla" then splits - "plains" (6 letters) vs "planes" (6).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across plains, planes: alnps. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
plains
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVVCC
Inventory ailnps · private i
planes
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVCVC
Inventory aelnps · private e
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "plains" when you mean: plural of plain
- Write "planes" when you mean: plural of plane
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 (plains, planes). Here's where to go from here.
- "planes" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #5,532 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: poultry · paltry. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "plains, planes" 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.