cabevscameWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cabe is a noun, came is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cabe” is a noun and “came” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,011
“cabe” frequency rank
#33,003
“came” frequency rank
35014
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cabe came
Definition Acción de atravesar la pierna en el camino de otro para hacerlo caer. Se utiliza para indicar que el siguiente suceso, período o cambio de estado ocurrió en el pasado, después de un tiempo de espera, perduración o anticipación.

Where the eye mixes cabe and came

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cabe and came follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
cabe
4 ch
came

Why the eye confuses cabe with came

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cabe is [ˈkaβ̞e] while came is /keɪm/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - b in “cabe” becomes m in “came”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35014, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cabe is recorded at frequency rank #2,011, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈkaβ̞e]. came is at rank #33,003, tagged as aprep, pronounced /keɪm/.

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 35014, this pair ranks #188,311 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cabe vs came

Shared letters: ace. Private to "cabe": b. Private to "came": m.

"cabe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "came" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cabeacbe · cabbe · caeb · cbae · ccabe
  • cameacme · caem · camme · ccame · cmae

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cabe" and "came" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cabe" is a noun and "came" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cabe" or "came"?
"cabe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,011 in our Spanish list, against #33,003 for "came". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "cabe" and "came" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cabe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "came" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #188,311 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cabe" and "came" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "came vs champ". 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 #188,311 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list