The word boars (and its homophone bores) emerges as the word which enters the greatest number of minimal pairs in the Mitton dictionary, appearing in 67 pairs belonging to 42 different lists. For amusement I have added several proper names which were not in the original list, bringing the total to 70. I realise that including two different spellings and pronunciations of a Russian beetroot soup is stretching a point, but they were both in the dictionary.
| Initial consonant | Vowel | Closing consonant | |||||
| p | pause paws pores pours |
i | B's bees |
p | - | ||
| t | tawse tors |
ɪ | biz | t | bought | ||
| d | daws doors |
e | - | d | bawd board bored |
||
| k | cause caws corps cores |
æ | Baz (abbr. of Basil) |
k | balk | ||
| g | gauze gores |
ɑ | baas bars |
g | Borg (tennis-player) | ||
| f | fours | ɒ | Boz (Pen-name of Dickens) |
f | - | ||
| v | - | ʊ | - | v | - | ||
| Ɵ | thaws | u | boos booze |
Ɵ | - | ||
| ð | - | ʌ | buzz | ð | - | ||
| s | saws soars sores |
3 | burrs | s | - | ||
| z | - | ə | - | b | - | ||
| ʃ | shores | eɪ | baize bays beys |
ʃ | borsch | ||
| ʒ | - | aɪ | buys byes |
ʒ | - | ||
| h | haws whores |
ɔɪ | boys buoys |
h | - | ||
| m | maws | əʊ | bows beaux |
m | - | ||
| n | gnaws | aʊ | boughs bows |
n | born borne bourne |
||
| ŋ | - | ɪə | beers biers |
ŋ | - | ||
| l | laws | eə | bares bears |
l | ball | ||
| r | roars | ʊə | boors | r | - | ||
| j | yaws | j | - | ||||
| w | wars | w | - | ||||
| ʧ | chaws chores |
ʧ | bortsch | ||||
| ʤ | jaws | ʤ | - | ||||
John Higgins, Shaftesbury, January 2011