chase
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "chase", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "chase" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "chase" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
chase is aEnglishnoun. It means: The act of one who chases another; a pursuit. Pronounced /t͡ʃeɪs/. It ranks #3,354 in English word frequency. Often confused with che and CSE.
| 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) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for chase is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /t͡ʃeɪs/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,354 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for chase, with forms such as "cahse", "cchase", and "chaes". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.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… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is chase, spelled C-H-A-S-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
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.
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
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for chase
Misspelling Variants of "chase"
Frequency rank: #3,354 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: