Which to use
“chink” and “click” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,376
- “chink” frequency rank
- #1,594
- “click” frequency rank
- 47970
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | chink | click |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A narrow opening such as a fissure or crack. | A brief, sharp, not particularly loud, relatively high-pitched sound produced by the impact of something small and hard against something hard, such as by the operation of a switch, a lock, or a latch. |
Where the eye mixes chink and click
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. chink and click follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses chink with click
A purely visual mix-up. chink (/t͡ʃɪŋk/) and click (/klɪk/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47970, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
chink is recorded at frequency rank #46,376, classified as anoun, pronounced /t͡ʃɪŋk/. click is at rank #1,594, tagged as anoun, pronounced /klɪk/.
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 47970, this pair ranks #197,516 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of chink vs click
Shared letters: cik. Private to "chink": hn. Private to "click": l.
"chink" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "click" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "chink" and "click" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "chink" or "click"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "chink" and "click" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "chink" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "click" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #197,516 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "chink" and "click" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chibi vs chink". 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 #197,516 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.