English homophones
teared/tiered
"tiered" (#25,948 written frequency) beats "teared" (#47,956) in this 2-word /tɪə(ɹ)d/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /tɪə(ɹ)d/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "tiered" leads at #25,948, with "teared" trailing at #47,956.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "teared" is 6 letters, "tiered" is 6; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across teared, tiered: dert. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
teared
6 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVVCVC
Inventory adert · private a
tiered
6 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVVCVC
Inventory deirt · private i
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "teared" when you mean: simple past and past participle of tear (“produce liquid from the eyes”)
- Write "tiered" when you mean: simple past and past participle of tier
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 (teared, tiered). Here's where to go from here.
- "tiered" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #25,948 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: Thor · thaw. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "teared, tiered" 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.