English homophones
taught/taut/tort
"taught" is a verb; "taut" is an adjective - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "taught" arrives as a verb, while "taut" is an adjective. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "tau" then splits - "taught" (6 letters) vs "taut" (4).
- No shared spelling stem: "taught" is 6 letters, "tort" is 4; only the sound ties them.
- No shared spelling stem: "taut" is 4 letters, "tort" is 4; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across taught, taut, tort: t. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
taught
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVCCC
Inventory aghtu · private aghu
taut
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory atu · private au
tort
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory ort · private or
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "taught" when you mean: simple past and past participle of teach
- Write "taut" when you mean: Under tension, like a stretched bowstring, rope, or sail; tight.
- Write "tort" when you mean: A wrongful act, whether intentional or negligent, regarded as non-criminal and unrelated to a contract, which causes an injury and can be…
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
adjective · /tɔːt/ · #32,618 frequency
Under tension, like a stretched bowstring, rope, or sail; tight.
noun · /tɔːt/ · #25,620 frequency
A wrongful act, whether intentional or negligent, regarded as non-criminal and unrelated to a contract, which causes an injury and can be remedied in civil court, usually through the awarding of damages.
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 3-spelling cluster (taught, taut, tort). Here's where to go from here.
- "taught" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #2,136 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 3 spellings ranks #30 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 3-spelling cluster: tease · Tees · teas. 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.