Which to use
“cadran” and “caron” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #17,891
- “cadran” frequency rank
- #14,624
- “caron” frequency rank
- 32515
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cadran | caron |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | 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. | Signe typographique diacritique ‹ ◌̌ ›, utilisé dans l’écriture de certaines langues slaves (tchèque, slovaque, slovène), dans l’écriture de plusieurs langues à tons, et dans la transcription phonétique du chinois mandarin pinyin, pour les troisièmes tons. |
Where the eye mixes cadran and caron
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cadran runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against caron's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: cadran vs caron
A purely visual mix-up. cadran (\ka.dʁɑ̃\) and caron (\ka.ʁɔ̃\) 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 32515, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cadran is recorded at frequency rank #17,891, classified as anoun, pronounced \ka.dʁɑ̃\. caron is at rank #14,624, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ka.ʁɔ̃\.
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 32515, this pair ranks #296,758 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of cadran vs caron
Shared letters: acnr. Private to "cadran": d. Private to "caron": o.
"cadran" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "caron" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "cadran" and "caron" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "cadran" vs "caron" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "cadran" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "caron" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #296,758 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cadran" and "caron" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caron vs ciro". 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 #296,758 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.