caevsCICETell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#43,819
“cae” frequency rank
#17,374
“CICE” frequency rank
61193
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cae CICE
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif du verbe irrégulier caer. Dispositif fiscal français, créé en 2013 et supprimé en 2019, qui permettait aux entreprises de bénéficier d’un crédit d’impôt calculé sur la masse salariale, dans le but de soutenir la rémunération globale des salarié·e·s et d’encourager l’investissement, la recherche et l’emploi.

Where the eye mixes cae and CICE

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

3 ch
cae
4 ch
CICE

Look-alike desk: cae vs CICE

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cae is \ˈka.e\ while CICE is \se.i.se.ø\. 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 61193, 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\. CICE is at rank #17,374, tagged as anoun, pronounced \se.i.se.ø\.

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 61193, this pair ranks #93,598 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cae vs CICE

Shared letters: ce. Private to "cae": a. Private to "CICE": i.

"cae" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "CICE" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • CICEccice · ccie · cicce · ciec · icce

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cae" and "CICE" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cae" is a verb and "CICE" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cae" vs "CICE" - which ranks higher?
"CICE" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,374 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.

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 "cae" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "CICE" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #93,598 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cae" and "CICE" 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 #93,598 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