clipsvscropsTell them apart

Which to use

“clips” and “crops” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#6,664
“clips” frequency rank
#6,554
“crops” frequency rank
13218
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clips crops
Definition plural of clip plural of crop

Where the eye mixes clips and crops

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
clips
5 ch
crops

Why the eye confuses clips with crops

A purely visual mix-up. clips (/klɪps/) and crops (/kɹɒps/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13218, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clips is recorded at frequency rank #6,664, classified as anoun, pronounced /klɪps/. crops is at rank #6,554, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɹɒps/.

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 13218, this pair ranks #477,086 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of clips vs crops

Shared letters: cps. Private to "clips": il. Private to "crops": or.

"clips" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "crops" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clipscclips · cilps · clipps · clipss · clisp · cllips · clpis · lcips
  • cropsccrops · cropps · cropss · crosp · crpos · crrops · rcops

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "clips" and "crops" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/klɪps/ versus /kɹɒps/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "clips" vs "crops" - which ranks higher?
"crops" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,554 in our English list, against #6,664 for "clips". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clips" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crops" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #477,086 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clips" and "crops" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Croat vs crops". 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 #477,086 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