clonevsclotWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#11,518
“clone” frequency rank
#22,618
“clot” frequency rank
34136
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clone clot
Definition A living organism (originally a plant) produced asexually from a single ancestor, to which it is genetically identical. A thrombus, solidified mass of blood.

Where the eye mixes clone and clot

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

5 ch
clone
4 ch
clot

Visual trap between clone and clot

A purely visual mix-up. clone (/kloʊn/) and clot (/klɒt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34136, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clone is recorded at frequency rank #11,518, classified as anoun, pronounced /kloʊn/. clot is at rank #22,618, tagged as anoun, pronounced /klɒt/.

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 34136, this pair ranks #323,329 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of clone vs clot

Shared letters: clo. Private to "clone": en. Private to "clot": t.

"clone" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "clot" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clonecclone · cllone · clnoe · cloen · clonne · colne · lcone
  • clotcclot · cllot · clott · clto · lcot

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "clone" for "clot" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/kloʊn/ versus /klɒt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "clone" vs "clot" - which ranks higher?
"clone" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,518 in our English list, against #22,618 for "clot". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clone" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "clot" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #323,329 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clone" and "clot" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "clot vs Croat". 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 #323,329 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