charsvscorsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#8,971
“chars” frequency rank
#31,423
“cors” frequency rank
40394
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chars cors
Definition Pluriel de char. Pluriel de cor.

Where the eye mixes chars and cors

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

5 ch
chars
4 ch
cors

Visual trap between chars and cors

A purely visual mix-up. chars (\ʃaʁ\) and cors (\kɔʁ\) 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 40394, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chars is recorded at frequency rank #8,971, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃaʁ\. cors is at rank #31,423, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔʁ\.

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 40394, this pair ranks #240,848 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of chars vs cors

Shared letters: crs. Private to "chars": ah. Private to "cors": o.

"chars" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "cors" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • charscahrs · cchars · charrs · charss · chasr · chhars · chras · hcars
  • corsccors · corrs · cosr · ocrs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "chars" for "cors" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʃaʁ\ versus \kɔʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "chars" or "cors" show up more?
"chars" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,971 in our French list, against #31,423 for "cors". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "chars" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cors" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #240,848 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chars" and "cors" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs cors". 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 #240,848 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