English homophones
threw/through/thru
"threw" is a verb; "through" is a preposition - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "threw" arrives as a verb, while "through" is a preposition. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "thr" then splits - "threw" (5 letters) vs "through" (7).
- Shared stem "thr" then splits - "threw" (5 letters) vs "thru" (4).
- Shared stem "thr" then splits - "through" (7 letters) vs "thru" (4).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across threw, through, thru: hrt. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
threw
5 letters · 1 vowels · shape CCCVC
Inventory ehrtw · private ew
through
7 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCCVVCC
Inventory ghortu · private gou
thru
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CCCV
Inventory hrtu · private u
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "threw" when you mean: simple past of throw
- Write "through" when you mean: From one side or end of (something) to the other.
- Write "thru" when you mean: Nonstandard spelling of through.
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 3-spelling cluster (threw, through, thru). Here's where to go from here.
- "through" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #139 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: ton · tonne · tun. 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.