casvsceseConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#157
“cas” frequency rank
#47,212
“cese” frequency rank
47369
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cas cese
Definition Accident, aventure, conjoncture, occasion ; fait arrivé, ou qui peut arriver. Cessation, action de cesser.

Where the eye mixes cas and cese

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
cas
4 ch
cese

Why the eye confuses cas with cese

A purely visual mix-up. cas (\kɑ\) and cese (\ˈθese\) 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 47369, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cas is recorded at frequency rank #157, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɑ\. cese is at rank #47,212, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈθese\.

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 47369, this pair ranks #187,525 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cas vs cese

Shared letters: cs. Private to "cas": a. Private to "cese": e.

"cas" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "cese" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ceseccese · cees · csee · ecse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cas" and "cese" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kɑ\ versus \ˈθese\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cas" or "cese"?
"cas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #157 in our French list, against #47,212 for "cese". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cese" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #187,525 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cas" and "cese" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs cese". 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 #187,525 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