cadevscauseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,160
“cade” frequency rank
#332
“cause” frequency rank
40492
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cade cause
Definition Oxycèdre. Ce qui fait qu’une chose est ou s’opère.

Where the eye mixes cade and cause

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

4 ch
cade
5 ch
cause

Visual trap between cade and cause

A purely visual mix-up. cade (\kad\) and cause (\koz\) 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 40492, 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\. cause is at rank #332, tagged as anoun, pronounced \koz\.

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 40492, this pair ranks #240,091 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cade vs cause

Shared letters: ace. Private to "cade": d. Private to "cause": su.

"cade" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cause" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cadeacde · cadde · caed · ccade · cdae
  • causeacuse · casue · caues · ccause · cuase

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cade" and "cause" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kad\ versus \koz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cade" or "cause"?
"cause" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #332 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.

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 "cause" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #240,091 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cade" and "cause" 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 #240,091 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