cane

\kan\

/\kan\/ noun

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

The verdict

“cane” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #32,725) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#32,725
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords
3
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Femelle du canard.

Corpus desk

Index FR-cane · cane · French

cane · rank #32,725 · 3 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #32,725
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-LOW 3 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH caraïbe

Nearest frequency peer: caraïbe (+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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « cane »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « cane » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

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).

cane vs ce
50% similar
cane vs CN
0% similar
cane vs cas
50% similar

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

Key facts for cane
PropertyValue
Headwordcane
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kan\
Letters4
Frequency rank#32,725
Misspellings tracked3
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « cane »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.canese 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 « caraïbe » (#32,726), « Cali » (#32,723), « carcérale » (#32,727). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « cane » est au #32,725. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for cane is neighbouring look-alikes ("ce", "CN", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \kan\. Frequency #32,725 among 8,609 “C” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Our generated misspelling index lists 3 likely wrong-spelling variants for cane, with forms such as "acne", "ccane", and "cnae". 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", "CN", "cas", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is cane, spelled C-A-N-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Femelle du canard.
  2. 2
    Terme hypocoristique utilisé envers une femme.
  3. 3
    Meuble représentant l’animal du même nom dans les armoiries. Il n'y a pas de distinction notable avec le blasonnement du canard, la confusion est donc possible. À rapprocher de canard, canette, cygne, jars et oie.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Cane sauvage. Cane privée. Cane d’Inde.
  2. Le poids moyen de l’œuf de cane de Barbarie est voisin de 80 g.

This word in other languages

duck(English)Erpel(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • acne
  • ccane
  • cnae

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of cane - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

acne2ccane1cnae2
Edit distance from "cane"

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 "cane"?
"cane" is spelled C-A-N-E. The IPA pronunciation is \kan\.
What does "cane" mean?
As a noun, "cane" means: Femelle du canard.
What words are commonly confused with "cane"?
"cane" is commonly confused with "ce", "CN", "cas". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "cane"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "cane" is \kan\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "cane" come from?
"cane" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "cane", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

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

Cali#32,723bron#32,715boni#32,709cime#32,745

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list