cabanevscarèneWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#9,442
“cabane” frequency rank
#44,357
“carène” frequency rank
53799
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cabane carène
Definition Petite maison grossièrement construite. Partie d’un navire, ensemble des lignes longitudinales et transversales qui forment le dessin de la coque dans sa partie immergée (la quille et les flancs du navire jusqu’à la ligne de flottaison).

Where the eye mixes cabane and carène

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cabane and carène follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
cabane
6 ch
carène

Why the eye confuses cabane with carène

A purely visual mix-up. cabane (\ka.ban\) and carène (\ka.ʁɛn\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53799, 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\. carène is at rank #44,357, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ka.ʁɛn\.

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 53799, this pair ranks #138,283 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cabane vs carène

Shared letters: acen. Private to "cabane": b. Private to "carène": rè.

"cabane" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "carène" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cabane ← acbane · caabne · cabaen · cabanne · cabbane · cabnae · cbaane · ccabane

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cabane" and "carène" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ka.ban\ versus \ka.ʁɛn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "cabane" or "carène" show up more?
"cabane" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,442 in our French list, against #44,357 for "carène". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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 "carène" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #138,283 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cabane" and "carène" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "carénage vs carène". 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 #138,283 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