casedvscoaxedConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#48,121
“cased” frequency rank
#47,536
“coaxed” frequency rank
95657
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cased coaxed
Definition simple past and past participle of case simple past and past participle of coax

Where the eye mixes cased and coaxed

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cased runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against coaxed's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
cased
6 ch
coaxed

Visual trap between cased and coaxed

A purely visual mix-up. cased (/keɪst/) and coaxed (/kəʊkst/) 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 95657, 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/. coaxed is at rank #47,536, tagged as averb, pronounced /kəʊkst/.

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 95657, this pair ranks #851 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cased vs coaxed

Shared letters: acde. Private to "cased": s. Private to "coaxed": ox.

"cased" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "coaxed" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cased ← acsed · caesd · casde · casedd · cassed · ccased · csaed
  • coaxed ← caoxed · ccoaxed · coaexd · coaxde · coaxedd · coaxxed · coxaed · ocaxed

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cased" and "coaxed" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/keɪst/ versus /kəʊkst/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "cased" or "coaxed" show up more?
"coaxed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #47,536 in our English list, against #48,121 for "cased". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cased" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coaxed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #851 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cased" and "coaxed" 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 #851 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