cates vs Cath, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“cates” is a noun and “Cath” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,123
“cates” frequency rank: #32,725
“Cath” frequency rank: 80848
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	cates	Cath
Definition	Provisions; food; viands; especially, luxurious food; delicacies; dainties.	A diminutive of the female given name Catherine.

Letter map: cates vs Cath

Shared letters muted; letters that set cates and Cath apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch

cates

4 ch

Cath

Role in the sentence - cates and Cath

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cates is anoun and Cathaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80848, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cates is recorded at frequency rank #48,123, classified as anoun. Cath is at rank #32,725, tagged as aname, pronounced /kæθ/.

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 80848, this pair ranks #18,930 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cates vs Cath

Shared letters: act. Private to "cates": es. Private to "Cath": h.

"cates" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "Cath" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

cates ← actes · caets · catess · cattes · ccates · ctaes
Cath ← acth · cathh · catth · ccath · ctah

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cates" for "Cath" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cates" is a noun and "Cath" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "cates" or "Cath"?

"Cath" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,725 in our English list, against #48,123 for "cates". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "cates" vs "Cath" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "cates" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "Cath" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #18,930 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"cates" and "Cath" 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 #18,930 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.