chargevscharsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#786
“charge” frequency rank
#8,971
“chars” frequency rank
9757
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature charge chars
Definition Ce qui pèse. Pluriel de char.

Where the eye mixes charge and chars

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
charge
5 ch
chars

Why the eye confuses charge with chars

A purely visual mix-up. charge (\ʃaʁʒ\) and chars (\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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9757, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

charge is recorded at frequency rank #786, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃaʁʒ\. chars is at rank #8,971, 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 9757, this pair ranks #415,524 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of charge vs chars

Shared letters: achr. Private to "charge": eg. Private to "chars": s.

"charge" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "chars" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chargecahrge · ccharge · chagre · chareg · chargge · charrge · chharge · chrage
  • charscahrs · cchars · charrs · charss · chasr · chhars · chras · hcars

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "charge" and "chars" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʃaʁʒ\ versus \ʃaʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "charge" or "chars" show up more?
"charge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #786 in our French list, against #8,971 for "chars". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "charge" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chars" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #415,524 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "charge" and "chars" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chah vs chars". 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 #415,524 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