chase
/t͡ʃeɪs/
"chase" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“chase” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,354 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,354
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of one who chases another; a pursuit.
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
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for chase is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, 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 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.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “chase”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-H-A-S-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /t͡ʃeɪs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “che” - see the side-by-side comparison. chase vs che
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.