charavsclaryWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#36,071
“chara” frequency rank
#37,855
“clary” frequency rank
73926
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chara clary
Definition A green alga of the genus Chara. clary sage (Salvia sclarea)

Letter map: chara vs clary

Shared letters muted; letters that set chara and clary apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. chara and clary follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
chara
5 ch
clary

Corpus notes: chara and clary

chara and clary 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73926, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chara is recorded at frequency rank #36,071, classified as anoun. clary is at rank #37,855, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈklɛəɹi/.

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 73926, this pair ranks #37,990 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of chara vs clary

Shared letters: acr. Private to "chara": h. Private to "clary": ly.

"chara" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "clary" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chara ← cahra · cchara · chaar · charra · chhara · chraa · hcara
  • clary ← cclary · clarry · claryy · clayr · cllary · clray · lcary

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "chara" and "clary" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "chara" or "clary"?
"chara" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,071 in our English list, against #37,855 for "clary". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "chara" and "clary".

  • Full dictionary entry for "chara" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "clary" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,990 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chara" and "clary" 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 #37,990 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