come clean
"come-clean" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“come clean” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To confess; admit the truth.
Corpus desk
Index EN-come-clean · come clean · English
come clean · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "C" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | come clean |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “come clean” in English
Rare enough to double-check
come clean is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To confess; admit the truth.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for come clean, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is come clean, spelled C-O-M-E- -C-L-E-A-N.
Definition
- 1To confess; admit the truth.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how come clean appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"You better come clean, Swan, and tell the whole thing. What was it? Don't talk in circles."
Perhaps it is only fair to come clean at the start and confess that I found J.R.R. Tolkien's Unfinished Tales a disappointment.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.