capavscasConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#37,218
“capa” frequency rank
#157
“cas” frequency rank
37375
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature capa cas
Definition Condensateur. Accident, aventure, conjoncture, occasion ; fait arrivé, ou qui peut arriver.

Where the eye mixes capa and cas

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

4 ch
capa
3 ch
cas

Why the eye confuses capa with cas

A purely visual mix-up. capa (\ka.pa\) and cas (\kɑ\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37375, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

capa is recorded at frequency rank #37,218, classified as anoun, pronounced \ka.pa\. cas is at rank #157, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɑ\.

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 37375, this pair ranks #262,925 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of capa vs cas

Shared letters: ac. Private to "capa": p. Private to "cas": s.

"capa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cas" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • capaacpa · caap · cappa · ccapa · cpaa

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "capa" for "cas" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ka.pa\ versus \kɑ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "capa" vs "cas" - which ranks higher?
"cas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #157 in our French list, against #37,218 for "capa". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "capa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #262,925 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "capa" and "cas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "capa vs coupa". 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 #262,925 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