English homophones
tack/tak
"tack" is a noun; "tak" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "tack" arrives as a noun, while "tak" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "ta" then splits - "tack" (4 letters) vs "tak" (3).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across tack, tak: akt. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
tack
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory ackt · private c
tak
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory akt · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "tack" when you mean: A small nail with a flat head.
- Write "tak" when you mean: To take.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
- tack ← atck · tacck · tackk · takc · tcak · ttack
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (tack, tak). Here's where to go from here.
- "tack" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #17,973 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: titan · tighten. 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.