English homophones

spa/spar

"spa" (#7,611 written frequency) beats "spar" (#26,972) in this 2-word /ˈspɑː/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage

Frequency splits the cluster

These 2 spellings keep the same /ˈspɑː/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "spa" leads at #7,611, with "spar" trailing at #26,972.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • Shared stem "spa" then splits - "spa" (3 letters) vs "spar" (4).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across spa, spar: aps. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • spa

    3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CCV

    Inventory aps · no private letters vs siblings

  • spar

    4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CCVC

    Inventory aprs · private r

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "spa" when you mean: A health resort near a mineral spring or hot spring.
  • Write "spar" when you mean: A rafter of a roof.

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

  • sparpsar · sapr · sparr · sppar · spra · sspar

Each spelling

spa

noun · /ˈspɑː/ · #7,611 frequency

A health resort near a mineral spring or hot spring.

spar

noun · /spɑː/ · #26,972 frequency

A rafter of a roof.

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (spa, spar). Here's where to go from here.

  • "spa" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #7,611 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: seem · seam. Nearby cluster
  • Each spelling in "spa, spar" 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list