clay pigeon
"clay-pigeon" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“clay pigeon” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A flying target, usually a disc, made of a mixture of pitch and pulverized limestone rock, used as moving target in sport shooting.
Corpus desk
Index EN-clay-pigeon · clay pigeon · English
clay pigeon · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-5 5 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 | clay pigeon |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “clay pigeon” in English
Rare enough to double-check
clay pigeon is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A flying target, usually a disc, made of a mixture of pitch and pulverized limestone rock, used as moving target in sport shooting.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for clay pigeon, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: The term is a remnant of the history of trap shooting. Originally, live pigeons were used as targets, but they were gradually replaced with clay disks and ultimately banned. Later, clay was replaced with more suitable raw materials. The correct English form is clay pigeon, spelled C-L-A-Y- -P-I-G-E-O-N.
Definition
- 1A flying target, usually a disc, made of a mixture of pitch and pulverized limestone rock, used as moving target in sport shooting.
Etymology
The term is a remnant of the history of trap shooting. Originally, live pigeons were used as targets, but they were gradually replaced with clay disks and ultimately banned. Later, clay was replaced with more suitable raw materials.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
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.