Which to use
“caved” is a verb and “clawed” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #29,586
- “caved” frequency rank
- #34,433
- “clawed” frequency rank
- 64019
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | caved | clawed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | past participle of cave | having claws (of animals) |
Letter map: caved vs clawed
Shared letters muted; letters that set caved and clawed apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.
Part-of-speech tell for caved / clawed
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: caved is averb and clawedanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64019, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
caved is recorded at frequency rank #29,586, classified as averb, pronounced /keɪvd/. clawed is at rank #34,433, tagged as anadj.
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 64019, this pair ranks #79,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of caved vs clawed
Shared letters: acde. Private to "caved": v. Private to "clawed": lw.
"caved" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "clawed" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "caved" and "clawed" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "caved" vs "clawed" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Pair "caved" vs "clawed" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "caved" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "clawed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #79,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "caved" and "clawed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "clawed vs crewed". 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 #79,877 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.