cagnesvscapesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,326
“cagnes” frequency rank
#26,287
“capes” frequency rank
58613
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cagnes capes
Definition Pluriel de cagne. Pluriel de cape.

Where the eye mixes cagnes and capes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
cagnes
5 ch
capes

Why the eye confuses cagnes with capes

A purely visual mix-up. cagnes (\kaɲ\) and capes (\kap\) 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 58613, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cagnes is recorded at frequency rank #32,326, classified as anoun, pronounced \kaɲ\. capes is at rank #26,287, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kap\.

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 58613, this pair ranks #108,021 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cagnes vs capes

Shared letters: aces. Private to "cagnes": gn. Private to "capes": p.

"cagnes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "capes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cagnesacgnes · cagens · caggnes · cagness · cagnnes · cagnse · canges · ccagnes
  • capesacpes · caeps · capess · cappes · capse · ccapes · cpaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cagnes" for "capes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kaɲ\ versus \kap\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cagnes" vs "capes" - which ranks higher?
"capes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,287 in our French list, against #32,326 for "cagnes". 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 "cagnes" and "capes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cagnes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "capes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #108,021 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cagnes" and "capes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cagnes vs cakes". 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 #108,021 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