claimedvsclawedTell them apart

Quick tell: claimed is a verb, clawed is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“claimed” is a verb and “clawed” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,284
“claimed” frequency rank
#34,433
“clawed” frequency rank
36717
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature claimed clawed
Definition simple past and past participle of claim having claws (of animals)

Letter map: claimed vs clawed

Shared letters muted; letters that set claimed and clawed apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
claimed
6 ch
clawed

Part-of-speech tell for claimed / clawed

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: claimed is averb and clawedanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36717, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

claimed is recorded at frequency rank #2,284, classified as averb, pronounced /kleɪmd/. 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 36717, this pair ranks #300,775 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of claimed vs clawed

Shared letters: acdel. Private to "claimed": im. Private to "clawed": w.

"claimed" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC  ·  "clawed" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • claimedcalimed · cclaimed · claiemd · claimde · claimedd · claimmed · clamied · cliamed
  • clawedcalwed · cclawed · claewd · clawde · clawedd · clawwed · cllawed · clwaed

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "claimed" and "clawed" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "claimed" is a verb and "clawed" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "claimed" or "clawed" show up more?
"claimed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,284 in our English list, against #34,433 for "clawed". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "claimed" vs "clawed" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "claimed" 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 #300,775 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "claimed" 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 #300,775 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list