caivschipTell them apart

Which to use

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

#46,045
“cai” frequency rank
#27,369
“chip” frequency rank
73414
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cai chip
Definition Bien, affaire, objet, chose, fortune. Synonyme de micropuce.

Where the eye mixes cai and chip

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

3 ch
cai
4 ch
chip

Visual trap between cai and chip

A purely visual mix-up. cai (\kaj\) and chip (\tʃip\) 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 73414, 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\. chip is at rank #27,369, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tʃip\.

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 73414, this pair ranks #40,554 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cai vs chip

Shared letters: ci. Private to "cai": a. Private to "chip": hp.

"cai" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "chip" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chipcchip · chhip · chipp · chpi · cihp · hcip

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cai" for "chip" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kaj\ versus \tʃip\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "cai" or "chip" show up more?
"chip" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,369 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

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 "chip" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #40,554 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cai" and "chip" 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 #40,554 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