casedvscasesConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#48,121
“cased” frequency rank
#965
“cases” frequency rank
49086
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cased cases
Definition simple past and past participle of case plural of case

Where the eye mixes cased and cases

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

5 ch
cased
5 ch
cases

Why the eye confuses cased with cases

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cased is /keɪst/ while cases is /ˈkeɪsɪz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - d in “cased” becomes s in “cases”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49086, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cased is recorded at frequency rank #48,121, classified as averb, pronounced /keɪst/. cases is at rank #965, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkeɪsɪz/.

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 49086, this pair ranks #186,986 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cased vs cases

Shared letters: aces. Private to "cased": d. Private to "cases": -.

"cased" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "cases" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • casedacsed · caesd · casde · casedd · cassed · ccased · csaed
  • casesacses · caess · casess · casses · ccases · csaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cased" and "cases" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cased" is a verb and "cases" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cased" vs "cases" - which ranks higher?
"cases" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #965 in our English list, against #48,121 for "cased". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cased" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cases" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #186,986 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cased" and "cases" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cased vs clasped". 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 #186,986 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