English homophones

tern/turn

"tern" is a noun; "turn" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage 2026-09-03

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "tern" arrives as a noun, while "turn" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

No shared spelling stem: "tern" is 4 letters, "turn" is 4; only the sound ties them.

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

Write "tern" when you mean: Any of various seabirds of the subfamily Sterninae (of the family Laridae) that are similar to gulls but are smaller and have a forked tail.
Write "turn" when you mean: To make a non-linear physical movement.

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

noun · /tɜːn/ · #40,923 frequency

Any of various seabirds of the subfamily Sterninae (of the family Laridae) that are similar to gulls but are smaller and have a forked tail.

verb · /tɜːn/ · #484 frequency

To make a non-linear physical movement.

What to do next

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

"turn" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #484 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: traveled · travelled. 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.