English homophones
shaw/shore
"shore" (#4,122 written frequency) beats "shaw" (#6,296) in this 2-word /ʃɔː/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /ʃɔː/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "shore" leads at #4,122, with "shaw" trailing at #6,296.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "sh" then splits - "shaw" (4 letters) vs "shore" (5).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across shaw, shore: hs. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
shaw
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CCVC
Inventory ahsw · private aw
shore
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVCV
Inventory ehors · private eor
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "shaw" when you mean: A thicket; a small wood or grove.
- Write "shore" when you mean: Land adjoining a non-flowing body of water, such as an ocean, lake or pond.
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 (shaw, shore). Here's where to go from here.
- "shore" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #4,122 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: Snowden · Snowdon. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "shaw, shore" 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.