clem
/klɛm/
"clem" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“clem” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #29,597. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #29,597
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To be hungry; starve.
Corpus desk
Index EN-clem · clem · English
clem · rank #29,597 · 6 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #29,597
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH Clarissa
Nearest frequency peer: Clarissa (-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.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “clem”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- cheerfully
cheerfully
70,407 corpus weight
- chou
chou
70,406 corpus weight
- Clarissa
Clarissa
70,405 corpus weight
- clem
clem
70,404 corpus weight
- clinician
clinician
70,403 corpus weight
- clung
clung
70,402 corpus weight
What this shows “clem” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | clem |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /klɛm/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #29,597 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “clem”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around clem (IPA /klɛm/), averb. Corpus frequency is #29,597 among 5,599 “C” headwords. Dominant gloss: "To be hungry; starve.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for clem, with forms such as "cclem", "celm", and "clemm". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CM", "cum", "cue", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English *clemmen, *clammen, from Old English clemman, clæmman (“to press, surround”), from Proto-West Germanic *klammjan (“to squeeze”). Cognate with Dutch klemmen (“to jam, pinch, stick”), German klemmen (“to jam, clamp; to be stuck, … The correct English form is clem, spelled C-L-E-M.
Definition
- 1To be hungry; starve.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how clem appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"[…] Here he's back home again, and without work, and without a penny, and thou knows t' little one and I were pretty well clemmed to death when thou got us a bit o' bread and meat last night. We were that!"
Who are half clemmed from year’s end to year’s end, and see no close to it, no hope, no finish but the pauper’s deals!
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English *clemmen, *clammen, from Old English clemman, clæmman (“to press, surround”), from Proto-West Germanic *klammjan (“to squeeze”). Cognate with Dutch klemmen (“to jam, pinch, stick”), German klemmen (“to jam, clamp; to be stuck, stick [to a surface]”).
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- cclem
- celm
- clemm
- cllem
- clme
- lcem
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of clem - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "clem", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).