CahillvschildConfusable pair

Quick tell: Cahill is a name, child is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Cahill” is a name and “child” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,215
“Cahill” frequency rank
#23,798
“child” frequency rank
61013
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Cahill child
Definition Nom de famille irlandais. Enfant (fils ou fille). Note d’usage : Utilisé généralement dans une construction possessive.

Letter map: Cahill vs child

Shared letters muted; letters that set Cahill and child apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. Cahill runs 6 letters (CVCVCC) against child's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
Cahill
5 ch
child

Role in the sentence - Cahill and child

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Cahill is aname and childanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61013, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Cahill is recorded at frequency rank #37,215, classified as aname. child is at rank #23,798, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈtʃaɪld\.

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 61013, this pair ranks #94,533 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Cahill vs child

Shared letters: chil. Private to "Cahill": a. Private to "child": d.

"Cahill" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "child" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Cahillachill · cahhill · cahil · cahlil · caihll · ccahill · chaill
  • childcchild · chhild · chidl · childd · chilld · chlid · cihld · hcild

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Cahill" for "child" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Cahill" is a name and "child" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Cahill" vs "child" - which ranks higher?
"child" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,798 in our French list, against #37,215 for "Cahill". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "Cahill" vs "child" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Cahill" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "child" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #94,533 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Cahill" and "child" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Cahill vs Camilla". 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 #94,533 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