cachevscameWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,409
“cache” frequency rank
#17,645
“came” frequency rank
20054
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cache came
Definition Lieu propre à cacher ou à se cacher. Organe mécanique permettant de transformer un mouvement de rotation en mouvement de translation ou de rotation.

Where the eye mixes cache and came

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

5 ch
cache
4 ch
came

Visual trap between cache and came

A purely visual mix-up. cache (\kaʃ\) and came (\kam\) 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 20054, 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\. came is at rank #17,645, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kam\.

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 20054, this pair ranks #370,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cache vs came

Shared letters: ace. Private to "cache": h. Private to "came": m.

"cache" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "came" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cacheacche · cacche · caceh · cachhe · cahce · ccache · ccahe
  • cameacme · caem · camme · ccame · cmae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cache" for "came" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kaʃ\ versus \kam\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cache" or "came"?
"cache" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,409 in our French list, against #17,645 for "came". 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 "cache" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "came" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #370,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cache" and "came" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "came 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 #370,158 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