Which to use
“cai” and “carie” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,045
- “cai” frequency rank
- #34,453
- “carie” frequency rank
- 80498
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cai | carie |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Bien, affaire, objet, chose, fortune. | Destruction des os et des dents par voie d’ulcération. |
Where the eye mixes cai and carie
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cai runs 3 letters (CVV) against carie's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between cai and carie
A purely visual mix-up. cai (\kaj\) and carie (\ka.ʁi\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80498, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cai is recorded at frequency rank #46,045, classified as anoun, pronounced \kaj\. carie is at rank #34,453, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ka.ʁi\.
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 80498, this pair ranks #20,766 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of cai vs carie
Shared letters: aci. Private to "cai": -. Private to "carie": er.
"cai" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "carie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- carie ← acrie · carei · ccarie
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "cai" and "carie" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "cai" or "carie" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "cai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "carie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #20,766 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cai" and "carie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cai 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 #20,766 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.