cadevscadreWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,160
“cade” frequency rank
#644
“cadre” frequency rank
40804
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cade cadre
Definition Oxycèdre. Bordure de bois, de marbre, de bronze, etc., dans laquelle on place un tableau, une estampe, un ouvrage de sculpture, etc.

Where the eye mixes cade and cadre

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

4 ch
cade
5 ch
cadre

Look-alike desk: cade vs cadre

A purely visual mix-up. cade (\kad\) and cadre (\kadʁ\) 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 40804, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cade is recorded at frequency rank #40,160, classified as anoun, pronounced \kad\. cadre is at rank #644, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kadʁ\.

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 40804, this pair ranks #237,788 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cade vs cadre

Shared letters: acde. Private to "cade": -. Private to "cadre": r.

"cade" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cadre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cade ← acde · cadde · caed · ccade · cdae
  • cadre ← acdre · caddre · cader · cadrre · carde · ccadre · cdare

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cade" for "cadre" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kad\ versus \kadʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cade" or "cadre"?
"cadre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #644 in our French list, against #40,160 for "cade". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cadre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #237,788 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cade" and "cadre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cade vs conde". 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 #237,788 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