clawback
"clawback" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“clawback” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A rule that permits a party to take back evidentiary materials that were mistakenly turned over to the other party but to which the other party would not have been entitled.
Corpus desk
Index EN-clawback · clawback · English
clawback · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "C" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | clawback |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “clawback” in English
Rare enough to double-check
clawback is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for clawback, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Deverbal from claw back. In the financial senses, refers to something being "clawed back", or reclaimed; in the sense of a flatterer, it suggests the idea of a person's back being scratched (see scratch someone's back). The correct English form is clawback, spelled C-L-A-W-B-A-C-K.
Definition
- 1A rule that permits a party to take back evidentiary materials that were mistakenly turned over to the other party but to which the other party would not have been entitled.
- 2Money that a party is entitled to keep under one tax provision but is taken by another tax provision.
- 3Any recovery of a performance-related payment based on discovery that the performance was not genuine.
- 4A flatterer or sycophant.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how clawback appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The airline got a clawback provision in the event of failure of the engines to meet fuel-consumption targets.
Take hede of theſe claubackes, theſe venemous people that wil come to you, that will folowe like Gnatoes and Paraſites, if you folowe them, you are oute of your boke.
Etymology
Deverbal from claw back. In the financial senses, refers to something being "clawed back", or reclaimed; in the sense of a flatterer, it suggests the idea of a person's back being scratched (see scratch someone's back).
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.