Which to use
“came” is a verb and “cates” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #294
- “came” frequency rank
- #48,123
- “cates” frequency rank
- 48417
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | came | cates |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past of come | Provisions; food; viands; especially, luxurious food; delicacies; dainties. |
Letter map: came vs cates
Shared letters muted; letters that set came and cates apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. came runs 4 letters (CVCV) against cates's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for came / cates
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: came is averb and catesanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48417, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
came is recorded at frequency rank #294, classified as averb, pronounced /keɪm/. cates is at rank #48,123, 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 48417, this pair ranks #193,256 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of came vs cates
Shared letters: ace. Private to "came": m. Private to "cates": st.
"came" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "cates" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "came" for "cates" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "came" or "cates" show up more?
What to do next
You've compared "came" and "cates". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "came" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cates" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #193,256 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "came" and "cates" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cates vs catty". 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 #193,256 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.