cadevscathWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,160
“cade” frequency rank
#40,167
“cath” frequency rank
80327
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cade cath
Definition Oxycèdre. Chat (animal).

Where the eye mixes cade and cath

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
cade
4 ch
cath

Look-alike desk: cade vs cath

A purely visual mix-up. cade (\kad\) and cath (\kaːθ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80327, 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\. cath is at rank #40,167, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kaːθ\.

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 80327, this pair ranks #21,222 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cade vs cath

Shared letters: ac. Private to "cade": de. Private to "cath": ht.

"cade" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cath" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cadeacde · cadde · caed · ccade · cdae
  • cathacth · cathh · catth · ccath · ctah

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cade" and "cath" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kad\ versus \kaːθ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cade" or "cath"?
"cade" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,160 in our French list, against #40,167 for "cath". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cath" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,222 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cade" and "cath" 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 #21,222 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