cline
/klaɪn/noun
cline is spelled C-L-I-N-E: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 35,320th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, cline means “A gradation in a character or phenotype within a species, deme, or other systematic group” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of cline is clines.
How many letters and syllables are in cline?
| Letters | 5: C-L-I-N-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 35,320th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is cline?
Cline appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 35,320th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce cline?
- /klaɪn/
Cline has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-cline.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with cline?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as cline.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: incel.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of cline
- clines plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does cline mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A gradation in a character or phenotype within a species, deme, or other systematic group.
- 2
Any graduated continuum.
- 3
A generalized circle.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Cline in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense systematics:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Spanish | cline, clina |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does cline come from?
From Ancient Greek κλῑ́νω (klī́nō, “to lean, incline”). Introduced by English evolutionary biologist and eugenicist Julian Huxley in 1938 after British mycologist John Ramsbottom suggested the term.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).