English homophones
seaman/semen
"semen" (#17,713 written frequency) beats "seaman" (#22,501) in this 2-word /ˈsiːmən/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /ˈsiːmən/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "semen" leads at #17,713, with "seaman" trailing at #22,501.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "se" then splits - "seaman" (6 letters) vs "semen" (5).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across seaman, semen: emns. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
seaman
6 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVVCVC
Inventory aemns · private a
semen
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCVC
Inventory emns · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "seaman" when you mean: Synonym of sailor, particularly on a maritime vessel.
- Write "semen" when you mean: A sticky, milky fluid produced in male reproductive organs that contains the reproductive cells.
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 (seaman, semen). Here's where to go from here.
- "semen" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #17,713 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: shilling · schilling. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "seaman, semen" 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.