cabvscaiConfusable pair

Which to use

“cab” and “cai” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#22,504
“cab” frequency rank
#46,045
“cai” frequency rank
68549
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cab cai
Definition Taxi britannique. Bien, affaire, objet, chose, fortune.

Where the eye mixes cab and cai

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
cab
3 ch
cai

Visual trap between cab and cai

A purely visual mix-up. cab (\kab\) and cai (\kaj\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - b in “cab” becomes i in “cai”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68549, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cab is recorded at frequency rank #22,504, classified as anoun, pronounced \kab\. cai is at rank #46,045, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kaj\.

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 68549, this pair ranks #58,721 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cab vs cai

Shared letters: ac. Private to "cab": b. Private to "cai": i.

"cab" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "cai" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cab" for "cai" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kab\ versus \kaj\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "cab" or "cai" show up more?
"cab" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,504 in our French list, against #46,045 for "cai". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cab" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cai" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #58,721 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cab" and "cai" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cai vs CCE". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #58,721 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list