Español homophones

tubo/tuvo

"tubo" is a noun; "tuvo" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #33 of 387 Spanish groups.

Data vintage

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "tubo" arrives as a noun, while "tuvo" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • Shared stem "tu" then splits - "tubo" (4 letters) vs "tuvo" (4).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across tubo, tuvo: otu. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • tubo

    4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV

    Inventory botu · private b

  • tuvo

    4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV

    Inventory otuv · private v

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "tubo" when you mean: Objeto de forma cilíndrica, hueco por dentro, casi siempre abierto en ambos extremos.
  • Write "tuvo" when you mean: Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de tener.

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

  • tubotbuo · ttubo · tubbo · tuob · utbo
  • tuvottuvo · tuov · tuvvo · tvuo · utvo

Each spelling

tubo

noun · /ˈt̪uβ̞o/ · #5,446 frequency

Objeto de forma cilíndrica, hueco por dentro, casi siempre abierto en ambos extremos.

tuvo

verb · /ˈt̪uβ̞o/ · #441 frequency

Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de tener.

Nearby Spanish homophone groups

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list