chowdervscoderTell them apart

Which to use

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

#37,854
“chowder” frequency rank
#42,066
“coder” frequency rank
79920
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chowder coder
Definition A thick, creamy soup or stew. A device that generates a code, often as a series of pulses.

Letter map: chowder vs coder

Shared letters muted; letters that set chowder and coder apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
chowder
5 ch
coder

Corpus notes: chowder and coder

chowder and coder 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 differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79920, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chowder is recorded at frequency rank #37,854, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈt͡ʃaʊdɚ/. coder is at rank #42,066, 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 79920, this pair ranks #20,988 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of chowder vs coder

Shared letters: cdeor. Private to "chowder": hw. Private to "coder": -.

"chowder" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC  ·  "coder" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chowdercchowder · chhowder · chodwer · chowdder · chowderr · chowdre · chowedr · chowwder
  • coderccoder · cdoer · codder · coderr · codre · coedr · ocder

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "chowder" for "coder" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "chowder" vs "coder" - which ranks higher?
"chowder" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,854 in our English list, against #42,066 for "coder". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "chowder" and "coder".

  • Full dictionary entry for "chowder" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coder" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,988 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chowder" and "coder" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coder vs cower". 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 #20,988 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