casservschassezWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“casser” and “chassez” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#3,388
“casser” frequency rank
#41,703
“chassez” frequency rank
45091
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature casser chassez
Definition Briser ; rompre. Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe chasser.

Where the eye mixes casser and chassez

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. casser runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against chassez's 7 (CCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
casser
7 ch
chassez

Look-alike desk: casser vs chassez

A purely visual mix-up. casser (\ka.se\) and chassez (\ʃa.se\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45091, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

casser is recorded at frequency rank #3,388, classified as averb, pronounced \ka.se\. chassez is at rank #41,703, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʃa.se\.

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 45091, this pair ranks #205,471 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of casser vs chassez

Shared letters: aces. Private to "casser": r. Private to "chassez": hz.

"casser" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "chassez" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • casser ← acsser · casesr · casserr · cassre · ccasser · csaser
  • chassez ← cahssez · cchassez · chasesz · chasez · chassezz · chassze · chhassez · chsasez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "casser" for "chassez" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ka.se\ versus \ʃa.se\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "casser" or "chassez" show up more?
"casser" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,388 in our French list, against #41,703 for "chassez". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "casser" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chassez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #205,471 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "casser" and "chassez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chassées vs chassez". 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 #205,471 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list