English homophones
smith/Smythe
"smith" is a noun; "Smythe" 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: "smith" arrives as a noun, while "Smythe" is a name. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "sm" then splits - "smith" (5 letters) vs "Smythe" (6).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across smith, Smythe: hmst. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
smith
5 letters · 1 vowels · shape CCVCC
Inventory himst · private i
Smythe
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVCCV
Inventory ehmsty · private ey
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "smith" when you mean: A craftsperson who works metal into desired forms using a hammer and other tools, sometimes heating the metal to make it more workable, e…
- Write "Smythe" when you mean: A surname originating as an occupation.
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 (smith, Smythe). Here's where to go from here.
- "smith" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #1,376 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: seen · scene. 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.