English homophones
po/Poe
"po" is a noun; "Poe" is a name - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "po" arrives as a noun, while "Poe" is a name. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "po" then splits - "po" (2 letters) vs "Poe" (3).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across po, Poe: op. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
po
2 letters · 1 vowels · shape CV
Inventory op · no private letters vs siblings
Poe
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory eop · private e
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "po" when you mean: A peacock.
- Write "Poe" when you mean: A surname from Old Norse
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (po, Poe). Here's where to go from here.
- "po" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #7,482 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: PAPI · pappy. 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.