cartevscastWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#716
“carte” frequency rank
#28,476
“cast” frequency rank
29192
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature carte cast
Definition Représentation géométrique conventionnelle, en positions relatives, de phénomènes concrets ou abstraits (pays, région, ville, astres dans le ciel, etc.), localisables dans l’espace, à échelle réduite. Synonyme de transtypage.

Where the eye mixes carte and cast

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

5 ch
carte
4 ch
cast

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. carte (\kaʁt\) and cast (\kast\) 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 29192, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

carte is recorded at frequency rank #716, classified as anoun, pronounced \kaʁt\. cast is at rank #28,476, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kast\.

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 29192, this pair ranks #318,169 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of carte vs cast

Shared letters: act. Private to "carte": er. Private to "cast": s.

"carte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cast" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • carteacrte · caret · carrte · cartte · catre · ccarte · crate
  • castacst · casst · castt · ccast · csat

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "carte" and "cast" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kaʁt\ versus \kast\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "carte" or "cast"?
"carte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #716 in our French list, against #28,476 for "cast". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "carte" and "cast". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "carte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cast" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #318,169 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "carte" and "cast" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cast vs casus". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list