cairevscasseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#7,938
“caire” frequency rank
#2,411
“casse” frequency rank
10349
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature caire casse
Definition Étoupe de fibres de coco. Boîte plate et découverte, composée de deux parties, le haut de casse (majuscules) et le bas de casse (minuscules), et divisée en petites cases pour chaque caractère.

Where the eye mixes caire and casse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. caire (CVVCV) and casse (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
caire
5 ch
casse

Look-alike desk: caire vs casse

A purely visual mix-up. caire (\kɛʁ\) and casse (\kɑs\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10349, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

caire is recorded at frequency rank #7,938, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɛʁ\. casse is at rank #2,411, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɑs\.

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 10349, this pair ranks #413,319 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of caire vs casse

Shared letters: ace. Private to "caire": ir. Private to "casse": s.

"caire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "casse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cairecairre · ccaire · ciare
  • casseacsse · cases · ccasse · csase

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "caire" and "casse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kɛʁ\ versus \kɑs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "caire" or "casse"?
"casse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,411 in our French list, against #7,938 for "caire". 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 "caire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "casse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #413,319 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "caire" and "casse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caire vs ciro". 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 #413,319 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