Which to use
“cakes” and “capes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #48,958
- “cakes” frequency rank
- #26,287
- “capes” frequency rank
- 75245
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cakes | capes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de cake. | Pluriel de cape. |
Where the eye mixes cakes and capes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cakes and capes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: cakes vs capes
A purely visual mix-up. cakes (\kɛk\) and capes (\kap\) 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 a single letter - k in “cakes” becomes p in “capes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75245, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cakes is recorded at frequency rank #48,958, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɛk\. capes is at rank #26,287, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kap\.
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 75245, this pair ranks #34,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of cakes vs capes
Shared letters: aces. Private to "cakes": k. Private to "capes": p.
"cakes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "capes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "cakes" and "capes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "cakes" or "capes" show up more?
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 "cakes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "capes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #34,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cakes" and "capes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cakes vs casus". 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 #34,658 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.