cairvschaiTell them apart

Quick tell: cair is a verb, chai is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cair” is a verb and “chai” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,515
“cair” frequency rank
#19,783
“chai” frequency rank
67298
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cair chai
Definition To go. A female Romani.

Letter map: cair vs chai

Shared letters muted; letters that set cair and chai apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. cair (CVVC) and chai (CCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
cair
4 ch
chai

Grammar separator: cair vs chai

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cair is averb and chaianoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67298, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cair is recorded at frequency rank #47,515, classified as averb. chai is at rank #19,783, tagged as anoun.

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 67298, this pair ranks #63,989 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cair vs chai

Shared letters: aci. Private to "cair": r. Private to "chai": h.

"cair" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "chai" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cair ← acir · cairr · cari · ccair · ciar
  • chai ← cahi · cchai · chhai · hcai

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cair" and "chai" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cair" is a verb and "chai" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cair" or "chai"?
"chai" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,783 in our English list, against #47,515 for "cair". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "cair" and "chai". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cair" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chai" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,989 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cair" and "chai" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cair vs CCI". 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 #63,989 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list