casevscasketTell them apart

Which to use

“case” and “casket” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#255
“case” frequency rank
#20,583
“casket” frequency rank
20838
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature case casket
Definition An actual event, situation, or fact. A little box, e.g. for jewellery.

Where the eye mixes case and casket

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

4 ch
case
6 ch
casket

Why the eye confuses case with casket

A purely visual mix-up. case (/keɪs/) and casket (/ˈkæs.kɪt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20838, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

case is recorded at frequency rank #255, classified as anoun, pronounced /keɪs/. casket is at rank #20,583, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkæs.kɪt/.

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 20838, this pair ranks #428,293 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of case vs casket

Shared letters: aces. Private to "case": -. Private to "casket": kt.

"case" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "casket" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caseacse · caes · casse · ccase · csae
  • casketacsket · cakset · casekt · caskett · caskket · caskte · cassket · ccasket

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "case" and "casket" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/keɪs/ versus /ˈkæs.kɪt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "case" or "casket" show up more?
"case" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #255 in our English list, against #20,583 for "casket". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "case" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "casket" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #428,293 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "case" and "casket" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cased vs casket". 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 #428,293 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