English homophones

statesman/statesmen

"statesman" (#15,921 written frequency) beats "statesmen" (#33,859) in this 2-word /ˈsteɪtsmən/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage

Frequency splits the cluster

These 2 spellings keep the same /ˈsteɪtsmən/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "statesman" leads at #15,921, with "statesmen" trailing at #33,859.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • Shared stem "statesm" then splits - "statesman" (9 letters) vs "statesmen" (9).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

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

  • statesman

    9 letters · 3 vowels · shape CCVCVCCVC

    Inventory aemnst · no private letters vs siblings

  • statesmen

    9 letters · 3 vowels · shape CCVCVCCVC

    Inventory aemnst · no private letters vs siblings

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "statesman" when you mean: A man who is a leader in national or international affairs.
  • Write "statesmen" when you mean: plural of statesman

Known mistypes of these spellings

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

  • statesmansattesman · sstatesman · staetsman · statemsan · statesamn · statesmann
  • statesmensattesmen · sstatesmen · staetsmen · statemsen · statesemn · statesmenn

Each spelling

statesman

noun · /ˈsteɪtsmən/ · #15,921 frequency

A man who is a leader in national or international affairs.

statesmen

noun · /ˈsteɪtsmən/ · #33,859 frequency

plural of statesman

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

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

  • "statesman" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #15,921 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: sack · sac. Nearby cluster
  • Each spelling in "statesman, statesmen" 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