cachevscaeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cache is a noun, cae is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cache” is a noun and “cae” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,409
“cache” frequency rank
#43,819
“cae” frequency rank
46228
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cache cae
Definition Lieu propre à cacher ou à se cacher. Troisième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif du verbe irrégulier caer.

Where the eye mixes cache and cae

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
cache
3 ch
cae

Visual trap between cache and cae

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cache is \kaʃ\ while cae is \ˈka.e\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46228, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cache is recorded at frequency rank #2,409, classified as anoun, pronounced \kaʃ\. cae is at rank #43,819, tagged as averb, pronounced \ˈka.e\.

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 46228, this pair ranks #196,577 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cache vs cae

Shared letters: ace. Private to "cache": h. Private to "cae": -.

"cache" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cae" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cacheacche · cacche · caceh · cachhe · cahce · ccache · ccahe

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cache" and "cae" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cache" is a noun and "cae" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "cache" or "cae" show up more?
"cache" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,409 in our French list, against #43,819 for "cae". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cache" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cae" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #196,577 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cache" and "cae" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cae vs CCE". 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 #196,577 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