Which to use
“clap” and “cup” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #14,088
- “clap” frequency rank
- #805
- “cup” frequency rank
- 14893
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | clap | cup |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The act of striking the palms of the hands, or any two surfaces, together. | A concave vessel for drinking, usually made of opaque material (as opposed to a glass) and with a handle. |
Where the eye mixes clap and cup
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: clap vs cup
A purely visual mix-up. clap (/klæp/) and cup (/kʌp/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14893, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
clap is recorded at frequency rank #14,088, classified as anoun, pronounced /klæp/. cup is at rank #805, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kʌp/.
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 14893, this pair ranks #467,322 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of clap vs cup
Shared letters: cp. Private to "clap": al. Private to "cup": u.
"clap" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "cup" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- clap ← calp · cclap · clapp · cllap · clpa · lcap
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "clap" for "cup" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "clap" or "cup" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "clap" and "cup" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "clap" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cup" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #467,322 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "clap" and "cup" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caw vs clap". 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 #467,322 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.