ClovscloutWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#48,144
“Clo” frequency rank
#21,471
“clout” frequency rank
69615
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Clo clout
Definition Abbreviation of close (in street addresses). Influence or effectiveness, especially political.

Letter map: Clo vs clout

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

3 ch
Clo
5 ch
clout

Corpus notes: Clo and clout

Clo and clout are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “Clo” sits inside “clout”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69615, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Clo is recorded at frequency rank #48,144, classified as anoun. clout is at rank #21,471, tagged as anoun, pronounced /klaʊt/.

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 69615, this pair ranks #53,840 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Clo vs clout

Shared letters: clo. Private to "Clo": -. Private to "clout": tu.

"Clo" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "clout" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cloutcclout · cllout · clotu · cloutt · cluot · colut · lcout

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Clo" and "clout" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “Clo” sits inside “clout”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "Clo" vs "clout" - which ranks higher?
"clout" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,471 in our English list, against #48,144 for "Clo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "Clo" vs "clout" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Clo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "clout" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,840 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Clo" and "clout" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CGT vs Clo". 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 #53,840 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