caivsclicWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cai is a noun, clic is an onomatopoeia, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cai” is a noun and “clic” is an onomatopoeia - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,045
“cai” frequency rank
#9,618
“clic” frequency rank
55663
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cai clic
Definition Bien, affaire, objet, chose, fortune. Onomatopée exprimant un bruit sec, un claquement.

Where the eye mixes cai and clic

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

3 ch
cai
4 ch
clic

Look-alike desk: cai vs clic

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cai is \kaj\ while clic is \klik\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs onomatopoeia), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55663, 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\. clic is at rank #9,618, tagged as anonomatopoeia, pronounced \klik\.

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 55663, this pair ranks #126,033 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cai vs clic

Shared letters: ci. Private to "cai": a. Private to "clic": l.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cliccclic · cilc · clci · clicc · cllic · lcic

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cai" and "clic" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cai" is a noun and "clic" an onomatopoeia, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "cai" or "clic" show up more?
"clic" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,618 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.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "cai" and "clic" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "clic" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #126,033 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cai" and "clic" 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 #126,033 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