chosevscrosseTell them apart

Quick tell: chose is a verb, crosse is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“chose” is a verb and “crosse” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,719
“chose” frequency rank
#33,192
“crosse” frequency rank
35911
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chose crosse
Definition simple past of choose A lacrosse stick.

Letter map: chose vs crosse

Shared letters muted; letters that set chose and crosse apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
chose
6 ch
crosse

Part-of-speech tell for chose / crosse

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: chose is averb and crosseanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35911, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chose is recorded at frequency rank #2,719, classified as averb, pronounced /t͡ʃəʊz/. crosse is at rank #33,192, tagged as anoun.

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 35911, this pair ranks #307,843 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of chose vs crosse

Shared letters: ceos. Private to "chose": h. Private to "crosse": r.

"chose" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "crosse" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chosecchose · chhose · choes · chosse · chsoe · cohse · hcose
  • crosseccrosse · corsse · crose · crrosse · crsose · rcosse

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "chose" and "crosse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "chose" is a verb and "crosse" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "chose" or "crosse"?
"chose" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,719 in our English list, against #33,192 for "crosse". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "chose" vs "crosse" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chose" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crosse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #307,843 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chose" and "crosse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crone vs crosse". 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 #307,843 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