clock
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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5 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "clock", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "clock" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "clock" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
clock is aEnglishnoun. It means: A chronometer, an instrument that measures time, particularly the time of day. Pronounced /klɒk/. It ranks #3,414 in English word frequency. Often confused with CoC and cook.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | clock |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /klɒk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,414 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for clock is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /klɒk/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,414 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for clock, with forms such as "cclock", "clcok", and "cllock". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CoC", "cook", "cock", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: First use appears c. 1370. From Middle English clokke, clok, cloke (“clock”), from Middle Dutch clocke (“bell, clock”), from Old Dutch *klokka, from Medieval Latin clocca (“bell, clock, cloak”), probably of Celtic origin, from Proto-Celtic *klokkos (“bell”)… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is clock, spelled C-L-O-C-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A chronometer, an instrument that measures time, particularly the time of day.
- 2A common noun relating to an instrument that measures or keeps track of time.
- 3The odometer of a motor vehicle.
- 4An electrical signal that synchronizes timing among digital circuits of semiconductor chips or modules.
- 5The seed head of a dandelion.
- 6A time clock.
- 7A CPU clock cycle, or T-state.
- 8A luck-based patience or solitaire card game with the cards laid out to represent the face of a clock.
- 9A watch (timepiece).
- 10A face; the head.
Etymology
First use appears c. 1370. From Middle English clokke, clok, cloke (“clock”), from Middle Dutch clocke (“bell, clock”), from Old Dutch *klokka, from Medieval Latin clocca (“bell, clock, cloak”), probably of Celtic origin, from Proto-Celtic *klokkos (“bell”) (compare Welsh cloch (“bell”), Old Irish cloc (“bell, clock”)), either onomatopoeic or from Proto-Indo-European *klek- (“to laugh, cackle”) (compare Proto-Germanic *hlahjaną (“to laugh”)). Cognate with Old English clucge (“bell”), Saterland Frisian Klokke (“bell, clock”), Dutch klok (“clock, bell”), Low German Klock (“bell, clock”), German Glocke (“bell”), Danish and Norwegian klokke (“clock, bell”), Faroese klokka (“clock, bell”), Icelandic klukka (“clock, bell”), Swedish klocka (“clock, bell”), Asturian llueca (“cowbell”), Galician and Portuguese choca (“cowbell”), Doublet of cloak and cloche.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cclock,clcok,cllock,clocck,clockk,clokc,colck,lcock
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for clock
Misspelling Variants of "clock"
Frequency rank: #3,414 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: