pearvsPhaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: pear is a noun, Pha is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pear” is a noun and “Pha” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,676
“pear” frequency rank
#43,840
“Pha” frequency rank
59516
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pear Pha
Definition An edible fruit produced by the pear tree, similar to an apple but typically elongated towards the stem. A surname from Vietnamese.

Letter map: pear vs Pha

Shared letters muted; letters that set pear and Pha apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
pear
3 ch
Pha

Part-of-speech tell for pear / Pha

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pear is anoun and Phaaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59516, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pear is recorded at frequency rank #15,676, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɛə/. Pha is at rank #43,840, tagged as aname.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 59516, this pair ranks #105,659 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pear vs Pha

Shared letters: ap. Private to "pear": er. Private to "Pha": h.

"pear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Pha" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pearepar · paer · pearr · pera · ppear

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pear" for "Pha" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pear" is a noun and "Pha" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pear" vs "Pha" - which ranks higher?
"pear" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,676 in our English list, against #43,840 for "Pha". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "pear" and "Pha". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Pha" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #105,659 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pear" and "Pha" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pha vs PPA". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #105,659 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list