English homophones
sign/sine
"sign" (#885 written frequency) beats "sine" (#25,577) in this 2-word /saɪn/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /saɪn/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "sign" leads at #885, with "sine" trailing at #25,577.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "si" then splits - "sign" (4 letters) vs "sine" (4).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across sign, sine: ins. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
sign
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory gins · private g
sine
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV
Inventory eins · private e
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "sign" when you mean: A visible fact that shows that something exists or may happen.
- Write "sine" when you mean: In a right triangle, the ratio of the length of the side opposite an angle to the length of the hypotenuse.
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 (sign, sine). Here's where to go from here.
- "sign" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #885 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: sweet · suite. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "sign, sine" 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.