chairesvschairsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#38,196
“chaires” frequency rank
#36,754
“chairs” frequency rank
74950
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chaires chairs
Definition Pluriel de chaire. Pluriel de chair.

Same sound, different letters: chaires vs chairs

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. chaires runs 7 letters (CCVVCVC) against chairs's 6 (CCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
chaires
6 ch
chairs

Homophone desk: chaires vs chairs

This is the hard kind. chaires and chairs are pronounced identically (\ʃɛʁ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74950, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chaires is recorded at frequency rank #38,196, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃɛʁ\. chairs is at rank #36,754, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʃɛʁ\.

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 74950, this pair ranks #35,539 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of chaires vs chairs

Shared letters: achirs. Private to "chaires": e. Private to "chairs": -.

"chaires" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC  ·  "chairs" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chaires ← cchaires · chairess · chairres · chairse · charies · chhaires · chiares · hcaires
  • chairs ← cahirs · cchairs · chairrs · chairss · chaisr · charis · chhairs · chiars

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "chaires" and "chairs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ʃɛʁ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "chaires" vs "chairs" - which ranks higher?
"chairs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,754 in our French list, against #38,196 for "chaires". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"chaires" and "chairs" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chaires" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chairs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #35,539 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chaires" and "chairs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chaires vs chantres". 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 #35,539 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