cemvschezWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: cem is a noun, chez is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cem” is a noun and “chez” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,608
“cem” frequency rank
#30,730
“chez” frequency rank
71338
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cem chez
Definition cemetery At the home of.

Letter map: cem vs chez

Shared letters muted; letters that set cem and chez apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
cem
4 ch
chez

Role in the sentence - cem and chez

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cem is anoun and chezapreposition. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71338, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cem is recorded at frequency rank #40,608, classified as anoun. chez is at rank #30,730, tagged as aprep, pronounced /ʃeɪ/.

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 71338, this pair ranks #47,120 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cem vs chez

Shared letters: ce. Private to "cem": m. Private to "chez": hz.

"cem" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "chez" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chezcchez · cehz · chezz · chhez · chze · hcez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cem" for "chez" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cem" is a noun and "chez" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cem" vs "chez" - which ranks higher?
"chez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,730 in our English list, against #40,608 for "cem". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "cem" vs "chez" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cem" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #47,120 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cem" and "chez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cem vs CGT". 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 #47,120 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