Which to use
“child” and “chord” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #500
- “child” frequency rank
- #12,019
- “chord” frequency rank
- 12519
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | child | chord |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A person who has not yet reached adulthood, whether natural (puberty), cultural (initiation), or legal (majority). | A harmonic set of three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. |
Where the eye mixes child and chord
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: child vs chord
A purely visual mix-up. child (/tʃaɪld/) and chord (/kɔːd/) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12519, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
child is recorded at frequency rank #500, classified as anoun, pronounced /tʃaɪld/. chord is at rank #12,019, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɔːd/.
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 12519, this pair ranks #481,100 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of child vs chord
Shared letters: cdh. Private to "child": il. Private to "chord": or.
"child" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "chord" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "child" and "chord" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "child" vs "chord" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "child" and "chord" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "child" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "chord" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #481,100 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "child" and "chord" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Cheri vs chord". 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 #481,100 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.