cablevscubeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,776
“cable” frequency rank
#9,312
“cube” frequency rank
12088
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cable cube
Definition A long object used to make a physical connection. A regular polyhedron having six identical square faces.

Where the eye mixes cable and cube

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

5 ch
cable
4 ch
cube

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. cable (/ˈkeɪ.bəl/) and cube (/kjuːb/) 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 12088, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cable is recorded at frequency rank #2,776, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkeɪ.bəl/. cube is at rank #9,312, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kjuːb/.

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 12088, this pair ranks #483,494 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cable vs cube

Shared letters: bce. Private to "cable": al. Private to "cube": u.

"cable" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cube" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cableacble · cabble · cabel · cablle · calbe · cbale · ccable · cible
  • cubecbue · ccube · cubbe · cueb · ucbe

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cable" and "cube" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkeɪ.bəl/ versus /kjuːb/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cable" or "cube"?
"cable" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,776 in our English list, against #9,312 for "cube". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list