cafésvscaseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#9,443
“cafés” frequency rank
#4,916
“case” frequency rank
14359
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cafés case
Definition Pluriel de café. Petite habitation traditionnelle, sous les tropiques.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set cafés and case apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
cafés
4 ch
case

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. cafés (\ka.fe\) and case (\kaz\) 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 14359, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cafés is recorded at frequency rank #9,443, classified as anoun, pronounced \ka.fe\. case is at rank #4,916, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kaz\.

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 14359, this pair ranks #397,028 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cafés vs case

Shared letters: acs. Private to "cafés": . Private to "case": e.

"cafés" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "case" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caseacse · caes · ccase · csae

Frequency comparison

cafés#9,443
case#4,916

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cafés" and "case" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ka.fe\ versus \kaz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cafés" or "case"?
"case" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,916 in our French list, against #9,443 for "cafés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering cafés vs case

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Read both glosses above and match the meaning you intend, only context separates this pair.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “cafés” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list