Which to use
“cloth” is a noun and “clothed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #6,772
- “cloth” frequency rank
- #20,589
- “clothed” frequency rank
- 27361
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cloth | clothed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A fabric, usually made of woven, knitted, or felted fibres or filaments, such as used in dressing, decorating, cleaning or other practical use. Sometimes, woven fabric specifically. | simple past and past participle of clothe |
Where the eye mixes cloth and clothed
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. cloth runs 5 letters (CCVCC) against clothed's 7 (CCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between cloth and clothed
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cloth is /klɒθ/ while clothed is /ˈkləʊðd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “cloth” sits inside “clothed”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27361, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cloth is recorded at frequency rank #6,772, classified as anoun, pronounced /klɒθ/. clothed is at rank #20,589, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈkləʊðd/.
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 27361, this pair ranks #379,548 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of cloth vs clothed
Shared letters: chlot. Private to "cloth": -. Private to "clothed": de.
"cloth" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "clothed" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "cloth" and "clothed" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "cloth" or "clothed" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "cloth" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "clothed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #379,548 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cloth" and "clothed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "clothed vs clutched". 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 #379,548 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.