CaprivscaptifWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Capri is a name, captif is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Capri” is a name and “captif” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,508
“Capri” frequency rank
#29,268
“captif” frequency rank
59776
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Capri captif
Definition , île italienne dans la baie de Naples. Qui a été capturé, en particulier à la guerre.

Where the eye mixes Capri and captif

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Capri
6 ch
captif

Look-alike desk: Capri vs captif

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Capri is \ka.pʁi\ while captif is \kap.tif\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59776, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Capri is recorded at frequency rank #30,508, classified as aname, pronounced \ka.pʁi\. captif is at rank #29,268, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kap.tif\.

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 59776, this pair ranks #101,242 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Capri vs captif

Shared letters: acip. Private to "Capri": r. Private to "captif": ft.

"Capri" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "captif" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Capriacpri · capir · cappri · caprri · carpi · ccapri · cpari
  • captifacptif · capitf · capptif · captfi · captiff · capttif · catpif · ccaptif

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Capri" and "captif" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Capri" is a name and "captif" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Capri" vs "captif" - which ranks higher?
"captif" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,268 in our French list, against #30,508 for "Capri". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "Capri" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "captif" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #101,242 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Capri" and "captif" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "canif vs captif". 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 #101,242 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