clergy
/ˈklɜːdʒi/
"clergy" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“clergy” has 10 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #10,511. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #10,511
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 10
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A body of persons, such as priests, who are trained and ordained for religious service.
Corpus desk
Index EN-clergy · clergy · English
clergy · rank #10,511 · 10 variants · 10 confusables
- FREQ-MID #10,511
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 10 pairs
- VAR-MID 10 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH chased
Nearest frequency peer: chased (-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 “clergy”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- cereal
cereal
89,493 corpus weight
- challenger
challenger
89,492 corpus weight
- chased
chased
89,491 corpus weight
- clergy
clergy
89,490 corpus weight
- coats
coats
89,489 corpus weight
- cola
cola
89,488 corpus weight
What this shows “clergy” 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 | clergy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈklɜːdʒi/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #10,511 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “clergy”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 10 spelling variants around clergy (IPA /ˈklɜːdʒi/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #10,511 among 5,599 “C” headwords. Dominant gloss: "A body of persons, such as priests, who are trained and ordained for religious service.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for clergy, with forms such as "cclergy", "celrgy", and "clegry". 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 10 confusable-pair relationships, "clerk", "cleric", "clerks", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English clergie (attested in the 13th century), from Old French clergie (“learned men”), from Late Latin clēricātus, from Latin clēricus (“one ordained for religious services”), from Ancient Greek κληρικός (klērikós, “of the clergy”). Equivalent… The correct English form is clergy, spelled C-L-E-R-G-Y.
Definition
- 1A body of persons, such as priests, who are trained and ordained for religious service.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how clergy appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Today we brought together clergy from the Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, and Reformed traditions for ecumenical dialogue.
Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing was pronounced. The choir and the clergy trooped out slowly, […], down the nave to the western door. […] At a seemingly immense distance the surpliced group stopped to say the last prayer.
Etymology
From Middle English clergie (attested in the 13th century), from Old French clergie (“learned men”), from Late Latin clēricātus, from Latin clēricus (“one ordained for religious services”), from Ancient Greek κληρικός (klērikós, “of the clergy”). Equivalent to cleric + -ate.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- cclergy
- celrgy
- clegry
- clerggy
- clergyy
- clerrgy
- cleryg
- cllergy
- clregy
- lcergy
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of clergy - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "clergy", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (10 here; floor ≥5).