ClarevscleveTell them apart

Quick tell: Clare is a name, cleve is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Clare” is a name and “cleve” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,020
“Clare” frequency rank
#47,535
“cleve” frequency rank
59555
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Clare cleve
Definition A county of Ireland. A room; chamber.

Letter map: Clare vs cleve

Shared letters muted; letters that set Clare and cleve apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Clare and cleve follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Clare
5 ch
cleve

Part-of-speech tell for Clare / cleve

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Clare is aname and cleveanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59555, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Clare is recorded at frequency rank #12,020, classified as aname, pronounced /klɛə/. cleve is at rank #47,535, tagged as anoun.

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 59555, this pair ranks #105,442 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Clare vs cleve

Shared letters: cel. Private to "Clare": ar. Private to "cleve": v.

"Clare" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "cleve" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Clare ← calre · cclare · clarre · cllare · clrae · lcare
  • cleve ← ccleve · celve · cleev · clevve · clleve · clvee · lceve

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Clare" and "cleve" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Clare" is a name and "cleve" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Clare" or "cleve"?
"Clare" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,020 in our English list, against #47,535 for "cleve". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "Clare" and "cleve". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Clare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cleve" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #105,442 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Clare" and "cleve" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cleaved vs cleve". 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 #105,442 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