câblevscabotConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#4,849
“câble” frequency rank
#37,707
“cabot” frequency rank
42556
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature câble cabot
Definition Gros cordage formé de l’assemblage de plusieurs torons de chanvre, d’aloès, d’acier, etc. Chien.

Where the eye mixes câble and cabot

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

5 ch
câble
5 ch
cabot

Why the eye confuses câble with cabot

A purely visual mix-up. câble (\kabl\) and cabot (\ka.bo\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42556, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

câble is recorded at frequency rank #4,849, classified as anoun, pronounced \kabl\. cabot is at rank #37,707, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ka.bo\.

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 42556, this pair ranks #224,699 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of câble vs cabot

Shared letters: bc. Private to "câble": elâ. Private to "cabot": aot.

"câble" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cabot" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cabotacbot · cabbot · cabott · cabto · caobt · cbaot · ccabot

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "câble" for "cabot" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kabl\ versus \ka.bo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "câble" vs "cabot" - which ranks higher?
"câble" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,849 in our French list, against #37,707 for "cabot". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "câble" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cabot" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #224,699 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "câble" and "cabot" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cabot vs Capet". 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 #224,699 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