chargevsClareTell them apart

Quick tell: charge is a noun, Clare is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“charge” is a noun and “Clare” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,012
“charge” frequency rank
#12,020
“Clare” frequency rank
13032
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature charge Clare
Definition The amount of money levied for a service. A county of Ireland.

Where the eye mixes charge and Clare

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
charge
5 ch
Clare

Why the eye confuses charge with Clare

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: charge is /t͡ʃɑːd͡ʒ/ while Clare is /klɛə/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13032, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

charge is recorded at frequency rank #1,012, classified as anoun, pronounced /t͡ʃɑːd͡ʒ/. Clare is at rank #12,020, tagged as aname, pronounced /klɛə/.

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 13032, this pair ranks #478,136 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of charge vs Clare

Shared letters: acer. Private to "charge": gh. Private to "Clare": l.

"charge" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "Clare" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chargecahrge · ccharge · chagre · chareg · chargge · charrge · chharge · chrage
  • Clarecalre · cclare · clarre · cllare · clrae · lcare

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "charge" for "Clare" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "charge" is a noun and "Clare" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "charge" or "Clare" show up more?
"charge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,012 in our English list, against #12,020 for "Clare". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "charge" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Clare" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #478,136 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "charge" and "Clare" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Clare vs cleve". 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 #478,136 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