cabovscapWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,649
“cabo” frequency rank
#2,029
“cap” frequency rank
42678
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cabo cap
Definition Cap. Pointe de terre qui s’avance dans la mer.

Where the eye mixes cabo and cap

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

4 ch
cabo
3 ch
cap

Visual trap between cabo and cap

A purely visual mix-up. cabo (\ˈka.βo\) and cap (\kap\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42678, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cabo is recorded at frequency rank #40,649, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈka.βo\. cap is at rank #2,029, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kap\.

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 42678, this pair ranks #223,784 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cabo vs cap

Shared letters: ac. Private to "cabo": bo. Private to "cap": p.

"cabo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cap" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caboacbo · cabbo · caob · cbao · ccabo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cabo" for "cap" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈka.βo\ versus \kap\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "cabo" or "cap" show up more?
"cap" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,029 in our French list, against #40,649 for "cabo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "cabo" and "cap" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cabo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cap" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #223,784 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cabo" and "cap" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cabo vs ciro". 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 #223,784 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