clave
/kleɪv/
"clave" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“clave” is uncommon English (frequency #70,568 among 43,570 “C” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #70,568
- frequency rank, English
- 43,570
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - simple past and past participle of cleave
Corpus desk
Index EN-clave · clave · English
clave · rank #70,568 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #70,568
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 43,570
- PHOTO-FINISH Cleverley
Nearest frequency peer: Cleverley (+1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “clave”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- cheesesteak
cheesesteak
29,437 corpus weight
- childishness
childishness
29,436 corpus weight
- clasping
clasping
29,435 corpus weight
- clave
clave
29,433 corpus weight
- Cleverley
Cleverley
29,432 corpus weight
- clumped
clumped
29,431 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “clave” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | clave |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /kleɪv/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #70,568 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “clave” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
clave is uncommon English at frequency #70,568 among 43,570 “C” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /kleɪv/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "simple past and past participle of cleave".
Zero misspellings are on record for clave in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is clave, spelled C-L-A-V-E.
Definition
- 1simple past and past participle of cleave
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "clave", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.