caevscauxWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cae is a verb, caux is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cae” is a verb and “caux” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,819
“cae” frequency rank
#38,692
“caux” frequency rank
82511
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cae caux
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif du verbe irrégulier caer. Mélange de choux, de navets et de pommes que l’on donne aux vaches et aux cochons.

Where the eye mixes cae and caux

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. cae runs 3 letters (CVV) against caux's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
cae
4 ch
caux

Visual trap between cae and caux

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cae is \ˈka.e\ while caux is \ko\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82511, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cae is recorded at frequency rank #43,819, classified as averb, pronounced \ˈka.e\. caux is at rank #38,692, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ko\.

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 82511, this pair ranks #16,605 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cae vs caux

Shared letters: ac. Private to "cae": e. Private to "caux": ux.

"cae" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "caux" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caux ← acux · cauxx · caxu · ccaux · cuax

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cae" and "caux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cae" is a verb and "caux" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cae" or "caux"?
"caux" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,692 in our French list, against #43,819 for "cae". 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 "cae" and "caux" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cae" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "caux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,605 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cae" and "caux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cae vs CCE". 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 #16,605 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