charavscharadeConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#36,071
“chara” frequency rank
#32,729
“charade” frequency rank
68800
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chara charade
Definition A green alga of the genus Chara. A genre of riddles where the clues to the answer are descriptions or puns on its syllables, with a final clue to the whole.

Letter map: chara vs charade

Shared letters muted; letters that set chara and charade apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

5 ch
chara
7 ch
charade

Corpus notes: chara and charade

chara and charade are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “chara” sits inside “charade”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68800, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chara is recorded at frequency rank #36,071, classified as anoun. charade is at rank #32,729, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ʃəˈɹɑːd/.

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 68800, this pair ranks #57,290 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of chara vs charade

Shared letters: achr. Private to "chara": -. Private to "charade": de.

"chara" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "charade" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • characahra · cchara · chaar · charra · chhara · chraa · hcara
  • charadecahrade · ccharade · chaarde · charadde · charaed · chardae · charrade · chharade

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "chara" and "charade" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “chara” sits inside “charade”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "chara" or "charade" show up more?
"charade" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,729 in our English list, against #36,071 for "chara". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "chara" vs "charade" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chara" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "charade" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #57,290 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chara" and "charade" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chara vs Charli". 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 #57,290 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