capesvscasWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#26,287
“capes” frequency rank
#157
“cas” frequency rank
26444
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature capes cas
Definition Pluriel de cape. Accident, aventure, conjoncture, occasion ; fait arrivé, ou qui peut arriver.

Where the eye mixes capes and cas

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

5 ch
capes
3 ch
cas

Visual trap between capes and cas

A purely visual mix-up. capes (\kap\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26444, 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\. 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 26444, this pair ranks #334,968 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of capes vs cas

Shared letters: acs. Private to "capes": ep. Private to "cas": -.

"capes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "cas" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • capesacpes · caeps · capess · cappes · capse · ccapes · cpaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "capes" for "cas" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kap\ versus \kɑ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "capes" or "cas"?
"cas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #157 in our French list, against #26,287 for "capes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "capes" 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 #334,968 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "capes" and "cas" 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 #334,968 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