Which to use
“caron” and “caton” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #14,624
- “caron” frequency rank
- #43,329
- “caton” frequency rank
- 57953
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | caron | caton |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Signe typographique diacritique ‹ ◌̌ ›, utilisé dans l’écriture de certaines langues slaves (tchèque, slovaque, slovène), dans l’écriture de plusieurs langues à tons, et dans la transcription phonétique du chinois mandarin pinyin, pour les troisièmes tons. | Tringle de fer qu’on forge à bras pour la passer à la filière. |
Where the eye mixes caron and caton
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: caron vs caton
A purely visual mix-up. caron (\ka.ʁɔ̃\) and caton (\ka.tɔ̃\) 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 - r in “caron” becomes t in “caton”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57953, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
caron is recorded at frequency rank #14,624, classified as anoun, pronounced \ka.ʁɔ̃\. caton is at rank #43,329, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ka.tɔ̃\.
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 57953, this pair ranks #111,934 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of caron vs caton
Shared letters: acno. Private to "caron": r. Private to "caton": t.
"caron" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "caton" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "caron" for "caton" ever safe?
Frequency check: "caron" vs "caton" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "caron" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "caton" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #111,934 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "caron" and "caton" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caton vs coon". 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 #111,934 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.