cadragevscadranWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#29,264
“cadrage” frequency rank
#17,891
“cadran” frequency rank
47155
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cadrage cadran
Definition Action de cadrer, choix des limites du champ visuel enregistré par l’appareil de prise de vue. Surface sur laquelle sont tracés les chiffres des heures et où la marche du temps est indiquée soit par l’ombre d’un style, soit par une aiguille que meuvent des ressorts intérieurs.

Where the eye mixes cadrage and cadran

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. cadrage runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against cadran's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
cadrage
6 ch
cadran

Look-alike desk: cadrage vs cadran

A purely visual mix-up. cadrage (\ka.dʁaʒ\) and cadran (\ka.dʁɑ̃\) 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 47155, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cadrage is recorded at frequency rank #29,264, classified as anoun, pronounced \ka.dʁaʒ\. cadran is at rank #17,891, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ka.dʁɑ̃\.

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 47155, this pair ranks #189,131 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cadrage vs cadran

Shared letters: acdr. Private to "cadrage": eg. Private to "cadran": n.

"cadrage" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "cadran" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cadrage ← acdrage · cadarge · caddrage · cadraeg · cadragge · cadrgae · cadrrage · cardage
  • cadran ← acdran · cadarn · caddran · cadrann · cadrna · cadrran · cardan · ccadran

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cadrage" for "cadran" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ka.dʁaʒ\ versus \ka.dʁɑ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cadrage" or "cadran"?
"cadran" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,891 in our French list, against #29,264 for "cadrage". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cadrage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cadran" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #189,131 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cadrage" and "cadran" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cadrage vs curage". 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 #189,131 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