champvschaseTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,472
“champ” frequency rank
#15,831
“chase” frequency rank
17303
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature champ chase
Definition Parcelle de terre utilisée pour l’agriculture. Poursuite, suite, chasse.

Where the eye mixes champ and chase

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
champ
5 ch
chase

Visual trap between champ and chase

A purely visual mix-up. champ (\ʃɑ̃\) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17303, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

champ is recorded at frequency rank #1,472, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃɑ̃\. 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 17303, this pair ranks #383,838 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of champ vs chase

Shared letters: ach. Private to "champ": mp. Private to "chase": es.

"champ" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "chase" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • champcahmp · cchamp · chammp · champp · chapm · chhamp · chmap · hcamp
  • chasecahse · cchase · chaes · chhase · chsae · hcase

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "champ" for "chase" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʃɑ̃\ versus \tʃeɪs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "champ" or "chase" show up more?
"champ" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,472 in our French list, against #15,831 for "chase". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "champ" 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 #383,838 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "champ" and "chase" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chapel vs chase". 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 #383,838 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