Which to use
“clearer” is a noun and “cleaved” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #10,665
- “clearer” frequency rank
- #49,255
- “cleaved” frequency rank
- 59920
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | clearer | cleaved |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Someone who or something which clears. | Cleft or cloven. |
Where the eye mixes clearer and cleaved
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. clearer and cleaved follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between clearer and cleaved
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: clearer is /ˈklɪəɹə/ while cleaved is /kliːvd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59920, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
clearer is recorded at frequency rank #10,665, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈklɪəɹə/. cleaved is at rank #49,255, tagged as anadj, pronounced /kliːvd/.
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 59920, this pair ranks #103,295 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of clearer vs cleaved
Shared letters: acel. Private to "clearer": r. Private to "cleaved": dv.
"clearer" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC · "cleaved" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "clearer" for "cleaved" ever safe?
Frequency check: "clearer" vs "cleaved" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "clearer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cleaved" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #103,295 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "clearer" and "cleaved" 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 #103,295 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.