English homophones
whine/wine
"wine" (#1,884 written frequency) beats "whine" (#20,267) in this 2-word /waɪn/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /waɪn/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "wine" leads at #1,884, with "whine" trailing at #20,267.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "whine" is 5 letters, "wine" is 4; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across whine, wine: einw. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
whine
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVCV
Inventory ehinw · private h
wine
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV
Inventory einw · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "whine" when you mean: A long-drawn, high-pitched complaining cry or sound.
- Write "wine" when you mean: An alcoholic beverage made by fermenting grape juice, with an ABV ranging from 5.5–16%.
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 (whine, wine). Here's where to go from here.
- "wine" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #1,884 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: Wickham · Wycombe. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "whine, wine" 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.