chasevsclashWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#15,831
“chase” frequency rank
#17,377
“clash” frequency rank
33208
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chase clash
Definition Poursuite, suite, chasse. Conflit ; dispute.

Where the eye mixes chase and clash

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

5 ch
chase
5 ch
clash

Visual trap between chase and clash

A purely visual mix-up. chase (\tʃeɪs\) and clash (\klaʃ\) 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 33208, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chase is recorded at frequency rank #15,831, classified as anoun, pronounced \tʃeɪs\. clash is at rank #17,377, tagged as anoun, pronounced \klaʃ\.

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 33208, this pair ranks #292,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of chase vs clash

Shared letters: achs. Private to "chase": e. Private to "clash": l.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chasecahse · cchase · chaes · chhase · chsae · hcase
  • clashcalsh · cclash · clahs · clashh · classh · cllash · clsah · lcash

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "chase" for "clash" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\tʃeɪs\ versus \klaʃ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "chase" or "clash"?
"chase" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,831 in our French list, against #17,377 for "clash". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "chase" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "clash" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #292,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chase" and "clash" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chah vs clash". 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 #292,158 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