tea and tee are homophones: they are pronounced identically and spelled differently, which is why they are so often swapped. tea means “a beverage made by steeping tea leaves in water”. tee means “the starting place for each hole on a golf course”. tea is the more common of the two in everyday English.
/ˈti/
1.n.a beverage made by steeping tea leaves in water
“iced tea is a cooling drink”
2.n.a light midafternoon meal of tea and sandwiches or cakes
“an Englishman would interrupt a war to have his afternoon tea”
3.n.a tropical evergreen shrub or small tree extensively cultivated in e.g. China and Japan and India; source of tea leaves
“tea has fragrant white flowers”
/ˈti/
| tea | tee | |
|---|---|---|
| Pronunciation | /ˈti/ | /ˈti/ |
| Said | tee | tee |
| Syllables | 1 | 1 |
| Letters | 3 | 3 |
| Parts of speech | noun | noun, verb |
| Senses | 5 | 5 |
| How common | Core | Familiar |
| Synonyms | none recorded | teeing ground |
1.n.the starting place for each hole on a golf course
“they were waiting on the first tee”
2.n.support holding a football on end and above the ground preparatory to the kickoff
3.n.a short peg put into the ground to hold a golf ball off the ground