chaisevschiselTell them apart

Which to use

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

#44,680
“chaise” frequency rank
#30,363
“chisel” frequency rank
75043
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chaise chisel
Definition An open, horse-drawn carriage for one or two people, usually with one horse and two wheels. A cutting tool used to remove parts of stone, wood or metal by pushing or pounding the back when the sharp edge is against the material. It consists of a slim, oblong block of metal with a sharp wedge or bevel formed on one end and sometimes a handle at the other end; there are hand tool versions (the original type) and versions as bits for power tools.

Where the eye mixes chaise and chisel

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
chaise
6 ch
chisel

Visual trap between chaise and chisel

A purely visual mix-up. chaise (/ʃeɪz/) and chisel (/ˈt͡ʃɪzəl/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75043, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chaise is recorded at frequency rank #44,680, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʃeɪz/. chisel is at rank #30,363, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈt͡ʃɪzəl/.

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 75043, this pair ranks #34,395 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of chaise vs chisel

Shared letters: cehis. Private to "chaise": a. Private to "chisel": l.

"chaise" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "chisel" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chaisecahise · cchaise · chaies · chaisse · chasie · chhaise · chiase · hcaise
  • chiselcchisel · chhisel · chiesl · chisell · chisle · chissel · chsiel · cihsel

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "chaise" for "chisel" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ʃeɪz/ versus /ˈt͡ʃɪzəl/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "chaise" or "chisel" show up more?
"chisel" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,363 in our English list, against #44,680 for "chaise". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "chaise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chisel" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #34,395 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chaise" and "chisel" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Chaim vs chaise". 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 #34,395 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