“The carpenter checked whether the wall was plum.”
Confusables Entry 1137 / 1350 60-second read
Plum vs. Plumb
The fruit versus the vertical or exactly.
The comparisoni
“The carpenter checked whether the wall was plumb.”
The ruleii
¶
PLUM = fruit. PLUMB = vertical / exactly.
PLUM is the purple fruit. PLUMB (with silent B) means exactly vertical, or completely ("plumb forgot"), or relates to the plumber's trade of straight pipes.
Memory aidiii
Remember it like this
Plum = fruit. Plumb = perpendicular (has B for line).