clamorvsclamourWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“clamor” and “clamour” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#45,845
“clamor” frequency rank
#46,982
“clamour” frequency rank
92827
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clamor clamour
Definition A great outcry or vociferation; loud and continued shouting or exclamation. British and Canada standard spelling of clamor.

Same sound, different letters: clamor vs clamour

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

6 ch
clamor
7 ch
clamour

Ear matches; page differs - clamor and clamour

This is the hard kind. clamor and clamour are pronounced identically (/ˈklæm.ə/) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 92827, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clamor is recorded at frequency rank #45,845, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈklæm.ə/. clamour is at rank #46,982, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈklæm.ə/.

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 92827, this pair ranks #2,283 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of clamor vs clamour

Shared letters: aclmor. Private to "clamor": -. Private to "clamour": u.

"clamor" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "clamour" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clamorcalmor · cclamor · clammor · clamorr · clamro · claomr · cllamor · clmaor
  • clamourcalmour · cclamour · clammour · clamoru · clamourr · clamuor · claomur · cllamour

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "clamor" for "clamour" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (/ˈklæm.ə/), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary English text, does "clamor" or "clamour" show up more?
"clamor" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #45,845 in our English list, against #46,982 for "clamour". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"clamor" and "clamour" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clamor" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "clamour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #2,283 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clamor" and "clamour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "clamor vs Cramer". 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 #2,283 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