Which to use
“clone” and “cone” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,518
- “clone” frequency rank
- #9,153
- “cone” frequency rank
- 20671
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | clone | cone |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A living organism (originally a plant) produced asexually from a single ancestor, to which it is genetically identical. | A surface of revolution formed by rotating a segment of a line around another line that intersects the first line. |
Where the eye mixes clone and cone
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: clone vs cone
A purely visual mix-up. clone (/kloʊn/) and cone (/ˈkəʊn/) 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 20671, 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/. cone is at rank #9,153, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkəʊn/.
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 20671, this pair ranks #429,519 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of clone vs cone
Shared letters: ceno. Private to "clone": l. Private to "cone": -.
"clone" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "cone" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "clone" for "cone" ever safe?
Frequency check: "clone" vs "cone" - which ranks higher?
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 "clone" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cone" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #429,519 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "clone" and "cone" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Clo vs clone". 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 #429,519 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.