Which to use
“clone” and “cove” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,518
- “clone” frequency rank
- #12,216
- “cove” frequency rank
- 23734
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | clone | cove |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A living organism (originally a plant) produced asexually from a single ancestor, to which it is genetically identical. | A hollow in a rock; a cave or cavern. |
Where the eye mixes clone and cove
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between clone and cove
A purely visual mix-up. clone (/kloʊn/) and cove (/koʊv/) 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 23734, 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/. cove is at rank #12,216, tagged as anoun, pronounced /koʊv/.
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 23734, this pair ranks #407,144 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of clone vs cove
Shared letters: ceo. Private to "clone": ln. Private to "cove": v.
"clone" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "cove" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "clone" and "cove" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "clone" or "cove"?
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 "cove" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #407,144 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "clone" and "cove" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cove vs cower". 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 #407,144 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.