capesvscareWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#26,287
“capes” frequency rank
#18,426
“care” frequency rank
44713
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature capes care
Definition Pluriel de cape. Entaille faite dans le pin pour recueillir la gemme.

Where the eye mixes capes and care

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
capes
4 ch
care

Look-alike desk: capes vs care

A purely visual mix-up. capes (\kap\) and care (\kaʁ\) 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 44713, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

capes is recorded at frequency rank #26,287, classified as anoun, pronounced \kap\. care is at rank #18,426, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kaʁ\.

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 44713, this pair ranks #208,376 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of capes vs care

Shared letters: ace. Private to "capes": ps. Private to "care": r.

"capes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "care" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • capesacpes · caeps · capess · cappes · capse · ccapes · cpaes
  • carecaer · ccare · crae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "capes" and "care" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kap\ versus \kaʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "capes" vs "care" - which ranks higher?
"care" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,426 in our French list, against #26,287 for "capes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "capes" and "care" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "capes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "care" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #208,376 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "capes" and "care" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "capes vs chapel". 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 #208,376 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