chairevsclairesTell them apart

Quick tell: chaire is a noun, claires is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“chaire” is a noun and “claires” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,287
“chaire” frequency rank
#7,288
“claires” frequency rank
16575
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chaire claires
Definition Sorte de tribune élevée et ordinairement surmontée d’un dais ou baldaquin dans laquelle se place le prêtre ou le pasteur pour prêcher, pour faire quelque lecture aux assistants, etc. Féminin pluriel de clair.

Where the eye mixes chaire and claires

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

6 ch
chaire
7 ch
claires

Visual trap between chaire and claires

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: chaire is \ʃɛʁ\ while claires is \klɛʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16575, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chaire is recorded at frequency rank #9,287, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃɛʁ\. claires is at rank #7,288, tagged as anadj, pronounced \klɛʁ\.

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 16575, this pair ranks #387,205 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of chaire vs claires

Shared letters: aceir. Private to "chaire": h. Private to "claires": ls.

"chaire" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "claires" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chaire ← cchaire · chairre · charie · chhaire · chiare · hcaire
  • claires ← calires · cclaires · claiers · clairess · clairres · clairse · claries · cliares

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "chaire" and "claires" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "chaire" is a noun and "claires" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "chaire" vs "claires" - which ranks higher?
"claires" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,288 in our French list, against #9,287 for "chaire". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chaire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "claires" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #387,205 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chaire" and "claires" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chaire vs charrie". 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 #387,205 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