clamevscradeConfusable pair

Quick tell: clame is a noun, crade is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“clame” is a noun and “crade” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,947
“clame” frequency rank
#36,340
“crade” frequency rank
67287
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clame crade
Definition Outillage de maintien d’une pièce mécanique pendant son usinage ou sa modification. Sale.

Where the eye mixes clame and crade

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. clame and crade follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
clame
5 ch
crade

Visual trap between clame and crade

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: clame is \klam\ while crade is \kʁad\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67287, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clame is recorded at frequency rank #30,947, classified as anoun, pronounced \klam\. crade is at rank #36,340, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kʁad\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 67287, this pair ranks #64,063 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of clame vs crade

Shared letters: ace. Private to "clame": lm. Private to "crade": dr.

"clame" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "crade" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clame ← cclame · claem · clamme · cllame · clmae · lcame
  • crade ← ccrade · cradde · craed · crdae · crrade · rcade

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "clame" and "crade" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "clame" is a noun and "crade" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "clame" or "crade"?
"clame" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,947 in our French list, against #36,340 for "crade". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clame" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crade" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,063 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clame" and "crade" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crade vs curage". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #64,063 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list