cabbievscableWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“cabbie” and “cable” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#45,829
“cabbie” frequency rank
#2,776
“cable” frequency rank
48605
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cabbie cable
Definition A cabdriver; someone who drives a taxi. A long object used to make a physical connection.

Where the eye mixes cabbie and cable

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

6 ch
cabbie
5 ch
cable

Look-alike desk: cabbie vs cable

A purely visual mix-up. cabbie (/ˈkæ.bi/) and cable (/ˈkeɪ.bəl/) 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 48605, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cabbie is recorded at frequency rank #45,829, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkæ.bi/. cable is at rank #2,776, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkeɪ.bəl/.

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 48605, this pair ranks #191,466 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cabbie vs cable

Shared letters: abce. Private to "cabbie": i. Private to "cable": l.

"cabbie" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "cable" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cabbieacbbie · cabbei · cabibe · cabie · cbabie · ccabbie
  • cableacble · cabble · cabel · cablle · calbe · cbale · ccable · cible

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cabbie" for "cable" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkæ.bi/ versus /ˈkeɪ.bəl/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cabbie" vs "cable" - which ranks higher?
"cable" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,776 in our English list, against #45,829 for "cabbie". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cabbie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cable" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #191,466 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cabbie" and "cable" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cabbie vs caddie". 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 #191,466 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list