cesevschaseTell them apart

Which to use

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

#47,212
“cese” frequency rank
#15,831
“chase” frequency rank
63043
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cese chase
Definition Cessation, action de cesser. Poursuite, suite, chasse.

Where the eye mixes cese and chase

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cese runs 4 letters (CVCV) against chase's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
cese
5 ch
chase

Look-alike desk: cese vs chase

A purely visual mix-up. cese (\ˈθese\) and chase (\tʃeɪs\) 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 63043, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cese is recorded at frequency rank #47,212, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈθese\. chase is at rank #15,831, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tʃeɪs\.

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 63043, this pair ranks #83,977 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cese vs chase

Shared letters: ces. Private to "cese": -. Private to "chase": ah.

"cese" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "chase" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cese ← ccese · cees · csee · ecse
  • chase ← cahse · cchase · chaes · chhase · chsae · hcase

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cese" for "chase" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈθese\ versus \tʃeɪs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cese" or "chase"?
"chase" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,831 in our French list, against #47,212 for "cese". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "cese" and "chase" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cese" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chase" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #83,977 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cese" and "chase" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs cese". 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 #83,977 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