English homophones
thaw/Thor
"thaw" is a verb; "Thor" is a name - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "thaw" arrives as a verb, while "Thor" is a name. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "th" then splits - "thaw" (4 letters) vs "Thor" (4).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across thaw, Thor: ht. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
thaw
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CCVC
Inventory ahtw · private aw
Thor
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CCVC
Inventory hort · private or
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "thaw" when you mean: To gradually melt, dissolve, or become fluid; to soften from frozen.
- Write "Thor" when you mean: A hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, and the protection of mankind.
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 (thaw, Thor). Here's where to go from here.
- "Thor" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #11,480 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: teal · Thiel. 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.