clicsvscliquesTell them apart

Which to use

“clics” and “cliques” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#16,323
“clics” frequency rank
#28,486
“cliques” frequency rank
44809
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clics cliques
Definition Pluriel de clic. Nom par lequel on désignait des sabots de bois dans certaines provinces.

Same sound, different letters: clics vs cliques

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. clics runs 5 letters (CCVCC) against cliques's 7 (CCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
clics
7 ch
cliques

Same sound, different spelling - clics / cliques

This is the hard kind. clics and cliques are pronounced identically (\klik\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44809, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clics is recorded at frequency rank #16,323, classified as anoun, pronounced \klik\. cliques is at rank #28,486, tagged as anoun, pronounced \klik\.

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 44809, this pair ranks #207,645 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of clics vs cliques

Shared letters: cils. Private to "clics": -. Private to "cliques": equ.

"clics" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "cliques" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clics ← cclics · cilcs · clcis · cliccs · clicss · clisc · cllics · lcics
  • cliques ← ccliques · cilques · cliqeus · cliqques · cliquess · cliquse · cliuqes · clliques

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "clics" and "cliques" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\klik\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "clics" vs "cliques" - which ranks higher?
"clics" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,323 in our French list, against #28,486 for "cliques". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"clics" and "cliques" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clics" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cliques" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #207,645 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clics" and "cliques" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "claquée vs cliques". 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 #207,645 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