caevsclameWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#43,819
“cae” frequency rank
#30,947
“clame” frequency rank
74766
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cae clame
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif du verbe irrégulier caer. Outillage de maintien d’une pièce mécanique pendant son usinage ou sa modification.

Where the eye mixes cae and clame

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cae runs 3 letters (CVV) against clame's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
cae
5 ch
clame

Look-alike desk: cae vs clame

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cae is \ˈka.e\ while clame is \klam\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 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 74766, 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\. clame is at rank #30,947, tagged as anoun, pronounced \klam\.

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 74766, this pair ranks #36,082 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cae vs clame

Shared letters: ace. Private to "cae": -. Private to "clame": lm.

"cae" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "clame" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clame ← cclame · claem · clamme · cllame · clmae · lcame

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cae" and "clame" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cae" is a verb and "clame" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "cae" or "clame" show up more?
"clame" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,947 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

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cae" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "clame" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #36,082 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cae" and "clame" 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 #36,082 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