cabovscatonWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#40,649
“cabo” frequency rank
#43,329
“caton” frequency rank
83978
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cabo caton
Definition Cap. Tringle de fer qu’on forge à bras pour la passer à la filière.

Where the eye mixes cabo and caton

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cabo runs 4 letters (CVCV) against caton's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
cabo
5 ch
caton

Look-alike desk: cabo vs caton

A purely visual mix-up. cabo (\ˈka.βo\) and caton (\ka.tɔ̃\) 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 83978, 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\. caton is at rank #43,329, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ka.tɔ̃\.

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 83978, this pair ranks #13,827 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cabo vs caton

Shared letters: aco. Private to "cabo": b. Private to "caton": nt.

"cabo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "caton" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cabo ← acbo · cabbo · caob · cbao · ccabo
  • caton ← acton · caotn · catno · catonn · catton · ccaton · ctaon

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cabo" for "caton" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈka.βo\ versus \ka.tɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cabo" or "caton"?
"cabo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,649 in our French list, against #43,329 for "caton". 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 "cabo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "caton" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,827 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cabo" and "caton" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caton vs coon". 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 #13,827 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