café

\ka.fe\

/\ka.fe\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“café” has 6 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #1,432. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#1,432
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords
6
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Graines de caféier, ou poudre formée de ces grains torréfiés et moulus.

Corpus desk

Index FR-cafe · café · French

café · rank #1,432 · 6 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #1,432
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-MID 6 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH Bruxelles

Nearest frequency peer: Bruxelles (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « café »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « café » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

café vs ce
25% similar
café vs cas
50% similar
café vs car
50% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for café
PropertyValue
Headwordcafé
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ka.fe\
Letters4
Frequency rank#1,432
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « café »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).cafése place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « Bruxelles » (#1,431), « chat » (#1,433), « belles » (#1,430). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « café » est au #1,432. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 6 spelling variants around café (IPA \ka.fe\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #1,432 among 8,609 “C” headwords. Wiktionary lists 6 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for café, with forms such as "acfé", "cafe", and "caffé". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ce", "cas", "car", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is café, spelled C-A-F-É.

Definition

  1. 1
    Graines de caféier, ou poudre formée de ces grains torréfiés et moulus.
  2. 2
    Caféier.
  3. 3
    Boisson, généralement bue chaude, de couleur noir-brun, réalisée à partir de cette poudre.
  4. 4
    Portion, servie dans une tasse, de cette boisson pour une personne.
  5. 5
    Établissement, lieu public où l’on consomme des boissons plutôt non alcoolisées.
  6. 6
    Moment où l’on prend le café après le repas.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how café appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. On ajoute quelquefois, après le grillage, un peu de beurre pour lustrer les cossettes et leur donner l’aspect du café brûlé.
  2. Le café est la graine de plusieurs espèces de caféiers, arbrisseaux, arbustes ou arbres constituant le genre Coffea, de la famille des Rubiacées-Cofféées.

Synonyms

brûlantcaouacaoutchoucnoirpetit noirbarbistrobistrotbistroquetcafetardcaboulotestaminetkavarnamannezinguemastroquetnomiyatroquetpubzinc

This word in other languages

coffee(English)café(Español)Kaffee(Deutsch)café(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • acfé
  • cafe
  • caffé
  • caéf
  • ccafé
  • cfaé

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of café - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.

acfé2cafe1caffé1caéf2ccafé1cfaé2
Edit distance from "café"

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "café"?
"café" is spelled C-A-F-É. The IPA pronunciation is \ka.fe\.
What does "café" mean?
As a noun, "café" means: Graines de caféier, ou poudre formée de ces grains torréfiés et moulus.
What words are commonly confused with "café"?
"café" is commonly confused with "ce", "cas", "car". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "café"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "café" is \ka.fe\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "café" come from?
"café" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "café", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

chat#1,433coin#1,435tuer#1,426mets#1,444

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).

jeudi6 variantspont6 variantstirer6 variantsvoire6 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list