wall clock

noun

"wall-clock" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“wall clock” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. 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) - A clock mounted on a wall.

Corpus desk

Index EN-wall-clock · wall clock · English

wall clock · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "W" 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.

Key facts for wall clock
PropertyValue
Headwordwall clock
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters10
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “wall clock” in English

wall clockranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

wall clock is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for wall clock, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is wall clock, spelled W-A-L-L- -C-L-O-C-K.

Definition

  1. 1
    A clock mounted on a wall.
  2. 2
    The measure of wall time, the actual amount of time taken from the start to the end of an operation.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how wall clock appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. In recent years a consensus has been reached among many scientists in the field that the most relevant measure of run time is actual wall-clock elapsed time.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "wall clock"?
"wall clock" is spelled W-A-L-L- -C-L-O-C-K.
What does "wall clock" mean?
As a noun, "wall clock" means: A clock mounted on a wall.
What language does "wall clock" come from?
"wall clock" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list