caissonvscaissonsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#24,889
“caisson” frequency rank
#30,929
“caissons” frequency rank
55818
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature caisson caissons
Definition Grande caisse sur un train à deux ou quatre roues qui servait ordinairement pour porter des vivres et des munitions à l’armée. Pluriel de caisson.

Same sound, different letters: caisson vs caissons

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.

7 ch
caisson
8 ch
caissons

Homophone desk: caisson vs caissons

This is the hard kind. caisson and caissons are pronounced identically (\kɛ.sɔ̃\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “caisson” sits inside “caissons”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55818, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

caisson is recorded at frequency rank #24,889, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɛ.sɔ̃\. caissons is at rank #30,929, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɛ.sɔ̃\.

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 55818, this pair ranks #125,040 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of caisson vs caissons

Shared letters: acinos. Private to "caisson": -. Private to "caissons": -.

"caisson" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC  ·  "caissons" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caissonacisson · caison · caisosn · caissno · caissonn · casison · ccaisson · ciasson
  • caissonsacissons · caisons · caisosns · caissnos · caissonns · caissonss · caissosn · casisons

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "caisson" and "caissons" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\kɛ.sɔ̃\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "caisson" or "caissons" show up more?
"caisson" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,889 in our French list, against #30,929 for "caissons". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"caisson" and "caissons" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "caisson" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "caissons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #125,040 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "caisson" and "caissons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caissons vs Clisson". 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 #125,040 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