clinic
/ˈklɪn.ɪk/
"clinic" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“clinic” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,015 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,015
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 10
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A medical facility, such as a hospital, especially one for the treatment and diagnosis of outpatients.
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 | clinic |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈklɪn.ɪk/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #5,015 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “clinic” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for clinic is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈklɪn.ɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,015 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for clinic, with forms such as "cclinic", "cilnic", and "cliinc". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 10 confusable-pair relationships, "Clint", "cynic", "clink", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French clinique, from Late Latin clīnicus (“a bed-ridden person, one baptized on a sick-bed, a physician”), from Ancient Greek κλῑνικός (klīnikós, “pertaining to a bed”), from κλῑ́νη (klī́nē, “bed”), from κλῑ́νω (klī́nō, “to lean, incline”). The correct English form is clinic, spelled C-L-I-N-I-C.
Definition
- 1A medical facility, such as a hospital, especially one for the treatment and diagnosis of outpatients.
- 2A hospital session to diagnose or treat patients.
- 3A school, or class, in which medicine or surgery is taught by examining and treating patients in the presence of the pupils.
- 4A group practice of several physicians or other health professionals.
- 5A meeting for the diagnosis of problems, or training, on a particular subject.
- 6A temporary office arranged on a regular basis to allow politicians to meet their constituents.
- 7A series of workouts used to build skills of practitioners regardless of team affiliation.
- 8A bed-ridden person
- 9Someone who receives baptism on a sickbed.
Etymology
Borrowed from French clinique, from Late Latin clīnicus (“a bed-ridden person, one baptized on a sick-bed, a physician”), from Ancient Greek κλῑνικός (klīnikós, “pertaining to a bed”), from κλῑ́νη (klī́nē, “bed”), from κλῑ́νω (klī́nō, “to lean, incline”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cclinic,cilnic,cliinc,clinci,clinicc,clinnic,cllinic,clniic,lcinic
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of clinic - 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
How do you spell "clinic"?
What does "clinic" mean?
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Using “clinic”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-L-I-N-I-C - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈklɪn.ɪk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Clint” - see the side-by-side comparison. clinic vs Clint
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.