cadevscakesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,160
“cade” frequency rank
#48,958
“cakes” frequency rank
89118
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cade cakes
Definition Oxycèdre. Pluriel de cake.

Where the eye mixes cade and cakes

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

4 ch
cade
5 ch
cakes

Why the eye confuses cade with cakes

A purely visual mix-up. cade (\kad\) and cakes (\kɛk\) 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 89118, 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\. cakes is at rank #48,958, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɛk\.

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 89118, this pair ranks #6,141 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cade vs cakes

Shared letters: ace. Private to "cade": d. Private to "cakes": ks.

"cade" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cakes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cade ← acde · cadde · caed · ccade · cdae
  • cakes ← ackes · caeks · cakess · cakkes · cakse · ccakes · ckaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cade" and "cakes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kad\ versus \kɛk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cade" or "cakes"?
"cade" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,160 in our French list, against #48,958 for "cakes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cakes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #6,141 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cade" and "cakes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cakes vs casus". 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 #6,141 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