English homophones
ton/tonne/tun
"ton" (#4,419 written frequency) beats "tonne" (#22,248) in this 3-word /tʌn/ cluster. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 3 spellings keep the same /tʌn/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "ton" leads at #4,419, with "tonne" trailing at #22,248.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "ton" then splits - "ton" (3 letters) vs "tonne" (5).
- No shared spelling stem: "ton" is 3 letters, "tun" is 3; only the sound ties them.
- No shared spelling stem: "tonne" is 5 letters, "tun" is 3; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across ton, tonne, tun: nt. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
ton
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory not · private o
tonne
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCCV
Inventory enot · private eo
tun
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory ntu · private u
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "ton" when you mean: Any of various units of mass, originally notionally equal to the contents of a tun
- Write "tonne" when you mean: A unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms.
- Write "tun" when you mean: A large cask; an oblong vessel bulging in the middle, like a pipe or puncheon, and girt with hoops; a wine cask. (See a diagram comparing…
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
- tonne ← otnne · tnone · tonen · ttonne
Each spelling
noun · /tʌn/ · #4,419 frequency
Any of various units of mass, originally notionally equal to the contents of a tun
noun · /tʌn/ · #30,265 frequency
A large cask; an oblong vessel bulging in the middle, like a pipe or puncheon, and girt with hoops; a wine cask. (See a diagram comparing cask sizes.)
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 3-spelling cluster (ton, tonne, tun). Here's where to go from here.
- "ton" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #4,419 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: taught · tort · taut. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "ton, tonne, tun" 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.