clonevscondeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#19,481
“clone” frequency rank
#49,566
“conde” frequency rank
69047
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clone conde
Definition Ensemble des êtres vivants issus, par voie asexuée, d’un seul individu et possédant son patrimoine génétique. Comte.

Where the eye mixes clone and conde

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
clone
5 ch
conde

Look-alike desk: clone vs conde

A purely visual mix-up. clone (\klon\) and conde (\ˈko̞n.de̞\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69047, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clone is recorded at frequency rank #19,481, classified as anoun, pronounced \klon\. conde is at rank #49,566, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈko̞n.de̞\.

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 69047, this pair ranks #56,690 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of clone vs conde

Shared letters: ceno. Private to "clone": l. Private to "conde": d.

"clone" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "conde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clonecclone · cllone · clnoe · cloen · clonne · colne · lcone
  • condecconde · cnode · codne · condde · coned · connde · ocnde

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "clone" and "conde" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\klon\ versus \ˈko̞n.de̞\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "clone" or "conde" show up more?
"clone" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,481 in our French list, against #49,566 for "conde". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clone" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "conde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #56,690 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clone" and "conde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CNE vs conde". 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 #56,690 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