chosevscoleWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#158
“chose” frequency rank
#11,932
“cole” frequency rank
12090
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chose cole
Definition Objet, idée ou abstraction quelconque, sans pouvoir, vouloir, ou devoir l’identifier ou la nommer. Note d’usage : La signification du mot chose se déduit par la manière dont on l’emploie dans la phrase, où il remplace ce qu’il n’est pas possible (ou pas souhaitable) de nommer. Peut aussi remplacer un ensemble d’objets inanimés (ou d’idées) qu’on devine par le contexte. Bile.

Letter map: chose vs cole

Shared letters muted; letters that set chose and cole apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
chose
4 ch
cole

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

chose and cole are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12090, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chose is recorded at frequency rank #158, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃoz\. cole is at rank #11,932, tagged as anoun.

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 12090, this pair ranks #406,622 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of chose vs cole

Shared letters: ceo. Private to "chose": hs. Private to "cole": l.

"chose" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "cole" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chosecchose · chhose · choes · chosse · chsoe · cohse · hcose
  • coleccole · cloe · coel · ocle

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "chose" and "cole" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "chose" or "cole"?
"chose" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #158 in our French list, against #11,932 for "cole". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "chose" and "cole". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chose" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cole" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #406,622 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chose" and "cole" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cole vs conde". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list