English homophones
ticks/tics
"ticks" is a noun; "tics" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "ticks" arrives as a noun, while "tics" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "tic" then splits - "ticks" (5 letters) vs "tics" (4).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across ticks, tics: cist. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
ticks
5 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCCC
Inventory cikst · private k
tics
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory cist · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "ticks" when you mean: plural of tick
- Write "tics" when you mean: third-person singular simple present indicative of tic
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 (ticks, tics). Here's where to go from here.
- "ticks" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #17,733 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: titan · tighten. 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.