chase
/t͡ʃeɪs/
"chase" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“chase” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #3,354. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #3,354
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The act of one who chases another; a pursuit.
Corpus desk
Index EN-chase · chase · English
chase · rank #3,354 · 7 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #3,354
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH captured
Nearest frequency peer: captured (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “chase”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- badly
badly
96,650 corpus weight
- bath
bath
96,649 corpus weight
- captured
captured
96,648 corpus weight
- chase
chase
96,647 corpus weight
- components
components
96,646 corpus weight
- concrete
concrete
96,645 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “chase” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chase |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /t͡ʃeɪs/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,354 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “chase” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around chase (IPA /t͡ʃeɪs/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #3,354 among 5,599 “C” headwords. Wiktionary lists 11 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for chase, with forms such as "cahse", "cchase", and "chaes". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "che", "CSE", "chat", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English chacen, from Anglo-Norman chacer, Old French chacier, from Vulgar Latin *captiāre, from Latin captāre, frequentative of capere. Compare French chasser (“to hunt”, “to chase”), Spanish cazar (“to hunt”), Portuguese caçar (“to hunt”) , see… The correct English form is chase, spelled C-H-A-S-E.
Definition
- 1The act of one who chases another; a pursuit.
- 2A hunt; the act of hunting; the pursuit of game.
- 3A children's game where one player chases another.
- 4A large country estate where game may be shot or hunted.
- 5Anything being chased, especially a vessel in time of war.
- 6A wild animal that is hunted.
- 7Any of the guns that fire directly ahead or astern; either a bow chase or stern chase.
- 8The occurrence of a second bounce by the ball in certain areas of the court, giving the server the chance, later in the game, to "play off" the chase from the receiving end and possibly win the point.
- 9A division of the floor of a gallery, marked by a figure or otherwise; the spot where a ball falls, and between which and the dedans the adversary must drive the ball in order to gain a point.
- 10One or more riders who are ahead of the peloton and trying to join the race or stage leaders.
- 11A series of brief improvised jazz solos by a number of musicians taking turns.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how chase appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
By-and-by, she wandered away to an unnecessary revelation of her master's whereabouts: gone to help in the search for his landlord, the Sieur de Poissy, who lived at the château just above, and who had not returned from his chase the day before; so the intendant imagined he might have met with some accident, and had summoned the neighbours to beat the for…
Through male bonding, the subculture of the hunt caught up in the mystique of the chase, the hunting party became a military force, and men discovered that they need not stop at defense: they could go out to hunt for other people's wealth.
Etymology
From Middle English chacen, from Anglo-Norman chacer, Old French chacier, from Vulgar Latin *captiāre, from Latin captāre, frequentative of capere. Compare French chasser (“to hunt”, “to chase”), Spanish cazar (“to hunt”), Portuguese caçar (“to hunt”) , see Norwegian skysse (“to hunt”). Doublet of catch and related to capture. Displaced native Old English ōht, ēhtnes, and wāþ. Broadly overtook Old English huntaþ.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- cahse
- cchase
- chaes
- chasse
- chhase
- chsae
- hcase
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of chase - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "chase", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "chase". Here's where to go from here.
- "chase" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "che". View pair
- 7 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #3,354 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "C" letter cohort. C–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.