clawedvscravedTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#34,433
“clawed” frequency rank
#32,749
“craved” frequency rank
67182
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clawed craved
Definition having claws (of animals) simple past and past participle of crave

Letter map: clawed vs craved

Shared letters muted; letters that set clawed and craved apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
clawed
6 ch
craved

Role in the sentence - clawed and craved

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: clawed is anadjective and cravedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67182, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clawed is recorded at frequency rank #34,433, classified as anadj. craved is at rank #32,749, tagged as averb, pronounced /kɹeɪvd/.

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 67182, this pair ranks #64,523 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of clawed vs craved

Shared letters: acde. Private to "clawed": lw. Private to "craved": rv.

"clawed" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "craved" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clawedcalwed · cclawed · claewd · clawde · clawedd · clawwed · cllawed · clwaed
  • cravedccraved · craevd · cravde · cravedd · cravved · crraved · crvaed · rcaved

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "clawed" and "craved" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "clawed" is an adjective and "craved" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "clawed" or "craved"?
"craved" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,749 in our English list, against #34,433 for "clawed". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "clawed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "craved" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,523 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clawed" and "craved" 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 #64,523 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