claysvsClosTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#37,382
“clays” frequency rank
#44,123
“Clos” frequency rank
81505
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clays Clos
Definition plural of clay A surname.

Letter map: clays vs Clos

Shared letters muted; letters that set clays and Clos apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. clays runs 5 letters (CCVVC) against Clos's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
clays
4 ch
Clos

Part-of-speech tell for clays / Clos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: clays is anoun and Closaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81505, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clays is recorded at frequency rank #37,382, classified as anoun, pronounced /kleɪz/. Clos is at rank #44,123, tagged as aname.

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 81505, this pair ranks #17,538 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of clays vs Clos

Shared letters: cls. Private to "clays": ay. Private to "Clos": o.

"clays" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "Clos" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clayscalys · cclays · clayss · clayys · cllays · clyas · lcays
  • Closcclos · cllos · closs · clso · lcos

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "clays" and "Clos" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "clays" is a noun and "Clos" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "clays" vs "Clos" - which ranks higher?
"clays" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,382 in our English list, against #44,123 for "Clos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "clays" vs "Clos" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clays" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Clos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,538 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clays" and "Clos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Clos vs coms". 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 #17,538 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