Which to use
“clough” is a noun and “cough” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,578
- “clough” frequency rank
- #7,668
- “cough” frequency rank
- 41246
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | clough | cough |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A narrow valley; a cleft in a hillside; a ravine, glen, or gorge. | Sometimes followed by up: to force (something) out of the lungs or throat by pushing air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound), and out through the mouth. |
Where the eye mixes clough and cough
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. clough runs 6 letters (CCVVCC) against cough's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between clough and cough
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: clough is /klʌf/ while cough is /kɒf/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41246, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
clough is recorded at frequency rank #33,578, classified as anoun, pronounced /klʌf/. cough is at rank #7,668, tagged as averb, pronounced /kɒf/.
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 41246, this pair ranks #260,237 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of clough vs cough
Shared letters: cghou. Private to "clough": l. Private to "cough": -.
"clough" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC · "cough" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "clough" for "cough" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "clough" or "cough" show up more?
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 "clough" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cough" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #260,237 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "clough" and "cough" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "clog vs clough". 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 #260,237 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.