casevscrazeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#255
“case” frequency rank
#18,283
“craze” frequency rank
18538
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature case craze
Definition An actual event, situation, or fact. A strong habitual desire or fancy.

Where the eye mixes case and craze

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
case
5 ch
craze

Visual trap between case and craze

A purely visual mix-up. case (/keɪs/) and craze (/kɹeɪz/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18538, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

case is recorded at frequency rank #255, classified as anoun, pronounced /keɪs/. craze is at rank #18,283, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɹeɪz/.

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 18538, this pair ranks #444,212 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of case vs craze

Shared letters: ace. Private to "case": s. Private to "craze": rz.

"case" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "craze" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caseacse · caes · casse · ccase · csae
  • crazecarze · ccraze · craez · crazze · crraze · crzae · rcaze

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "case" for "craze" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/keɪs/ versus /kɹeɪz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "case" vs "craze" - which ranks higher?
"case" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #255 in our English list, against #18,283 for "craze". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "case" and "craze" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "case" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "craze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #444,212 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "case" and "craze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Crabb vs craze". 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 #444,212 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