chosevscorseWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: chose is a noun, corse is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“chose” is a noun and “corse” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#158
“chose” frequency rank
#2,992
“corse” frequency rank
3150
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chose corse
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. Relatif à la Corse ou à ses habitants, sa langue, ou sa culture.

Where the eye mixes chose and corse

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

5 ch
chose
5 ch
corse

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: chose is \ʃoz\ while corse is \kɔʁs\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3150, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chose is recorded at frequency rank #158, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃoz\. corse is at rank #2,992, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kɔʁs\.

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 3150, this pair ranks #434,675 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of chose vs corse

Shared letters: ceos. Private to "chose": h. Private to "corse": r.

"chose" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "corse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chosecchose · chhose · choes · chosse · chsoe · cohse · hcose
  • corseccorse · cores · corrse · corsse · cosre · crose · ocrse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "chose" and "corse" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "chose" is a noun and "corse" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "chose" or "corse"?
"chose" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #158 in our French list, against #2,992 for "corse". 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 "corse". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chose" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "corse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #434,675 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chose" and "corse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "conde vs corse". 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