caivscaseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#46,045
“cai” frequency rank
#4,916
“case” frequency rank
50961
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cai case
Definition Bien, affaire, objet, chose, fortune. Petite habitation traditionnelle, sous les tropiques.

Where the eye mixes cai and case

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
cai
4 ch
case

Why the eye confuses cai with case

A purely visual mix-up. cai (\kaj\) 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 50961, 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\. 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 50961, this pair ranks #158,625 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cai vs case

Shared letters: ac. Private to "cai": i. Private to "case": es.

"cai" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "case" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caseacse · caes · ccase · csae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cai" for "case" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kaj\ versus \kaz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cai" vs "case" - which ranks higher?
"case" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,916 in our French list, against #46,045 for "cai". 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 "cai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "case" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #158,625 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cai" and "case" 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 #158,625 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