chasedvsclaspedWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: chased is a adjective, clasped is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“chased” is an adjective and “clasped” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,510
“chased” frequency rank
#48,142
“clasped” frequency rank
58652
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chased clasped
Definition Pursued. simple past and past participle of clasp

Where the eye mixes chased and clasped

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. chased runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against clasped's 7 (CCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
chased
7 ch
clasped

Visual trap between chased and clasped

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: chased is /t͡ʃeɪst/ while clasped is /klæspt/. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58652, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chased is recorded at frequency rank #10,510, classified as anadj, pronounced /t͡ʃeɪst/. clasped is at rank #48,142, tagged as averb, pronounced /klæspt/.

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 58652, this pair ranks #111,177 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of chased vs clasped

Shared letters: acdes. Private to "chased": h. Private to "clasped": lp.

"chased" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "clasped" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chased ← cahsed · cchased · chaesd · chasde · chasedd · chassed · chhased · chsaed
  • clasped ← calsped · cclasped · clapsed · clasepd · claspde · claspedd · claspped · classped

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "chased" for "clasped" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "chased" is an adjective and "clasped" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "chased" vs "clasped" - which ranks higher?
"chased" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,510 in our English list, against #48,142 for "clasped". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "chased" and "clasped" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chased" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "clasped" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #111,177 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chased" and "clasped" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cased vs clasped". 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 #111,177 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