Which to use
“cai” and “craie” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,045
- “cai” frequency rank
- #20,105
- “craie” frequency rank
- 66150
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cai | craie |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Bien, affaire, objet, chose, fortune. | Roche biogène de couleur blanche, constituée presque exclusivement de carbonate de calcium provenant essentiellement des débris de l’exosquelette de microorganismes planctoniques vivants au Crétacé. |
Where the eye mixes cai and craie
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cai runs 3 letters (CVV) against craie's 5 (CCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between cai and craie
A purely visual mix-up. cai (\kaj\) and craie (\kʁɛ\) 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 66150, 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\. craie is at rank #20,105, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁɛ\.
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 66150, this pair ranks #69,057 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of cai vs craie
Shared letters: aci. Private to "cai": -. Private to "craie": er.
"cai" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "craie" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- craie ← ccraie · craei · criae · crraie · rcaie
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "cai" for "craie" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "cai" or "craie" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "cai" and "craie" 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 "craie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #69,057 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cai" and "craie" 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 #69,057 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.