cabanevscabayeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#9,442
“cabane” frequency rank
#27,714
“cabaye” frequency rank
37156
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cabane cabaye
Definition Petite maison grossièrement construite. Autre orthographe de cabaille.

Where the eye mixes cabane and cabaye

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. cabane (CVCVCV) and cabaye (CVCVVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
cabane
6 ch
cabaye

Look-alike desk: cabane vs cabaye

A purely visual mix-up. cabane (\ka.ban\) and cabaye (\ka.baj\) 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 - n in “cabane” becomes y in “cabaye”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37156, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cabane is recorded at frequency rank #9,442, classified as anoun, pronounced \ka.ban\. cabaye is at rank #27,714, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ka.baj\.

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 37156, this pair ranks #264,491 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cabane vs cabaye

Shared letters: abce. Private to "cabane": n. Private to "cabaye": y.

"cabane" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "cabaye" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cabane ← acbane · caabne · cabaen · cabanne · cabbane · cabnae · cbaane · ccabane
  • cabaye ← acbaye · caabye · cabaey · cabayye · cabbaye · cabyae · cbaaye · ccabaye

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cabane" for "cabaye" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ka.ban\ versus \ka.baj\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cabane" vs "cabaye" - which ranks higher?
"cabane" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,442 in our French list, against #27,714 for "cabaye". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cabane" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cabaye" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #264,491 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cabane" and "cabaye" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cabaye vs câblage". 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 #264,491 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