chahvscharWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#47,782
“chah” frequency rank
#6,934
“char” frequency rank
54716
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chah char
Definition Titre des monarques de Perse, puis de l’Iran. Chariot élevé.

Where the eye mixes chah and char

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. chah and char follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
chah
4 ch
char

Visual trap between chah and char

A purely visual mix-up. chah (\ʃa\) and char (\ʃaʁ\) 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 a single letter - h in “chah” becomes r in “char”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54716, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chah is recorded at frequency rank #47,782, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃa\. char is at rank #6,934, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʃaʁ\.

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 54716, this pair ranks #132,142 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of chah vs char

Shared letters: ach. Private to "chah": -. Private to "char": r.

"chah" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "char" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chah ← cahh · cchah · chahh · chha · chhah · hcah
  • char ← cahr · cchar · charr · chhar · chra · hcar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "chah" for "char" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʃa\ versus \ʃaʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "chah" or "char"?
"char" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,934 in our French list, against #47,782 for "chah". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "chah" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "char" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #132,142 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chah" and "char" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCAS vs chah". 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 #132,142 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