casquesvscirquesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#11,537
“casques” frequency rank
#32,746
“cirques” frequency rank
44283
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature casques cirques
Definition Pluriel de casque. Pluriel de cirque.

Where the eye mixes casques and cirques

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
casques
7 ch
cirques

Why the eye confuses casques with cirques

A purely visual mix-up. casques (\kask\) and cirques (\siʁk\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44283, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

casques is recorded at frequency rank #11,537, classified as anoun, pronounced \kask\. cirques is at rank #32,746, tagged as anoun, pronounced \siʁk\.

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 44283, this pair ranks #211,634 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of casques vs cirques

Shared letters: ceqsu. Private to "casques": a. Private to "cirques": ir.

"casques" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "cirques" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • casquesacsques · caqsues · casqeus · casqques · casquess · casquse · cassques · casuqes
  • cirquesccirques · ciqrues · cirqeus · cirqques · cirquess · cirquse · cirrques · ciruqes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "casques" for "cirques" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kask\ versus \siʁk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "casques" or "cirques"?
"casques" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,537 in our French list, against #32,746 for "cirques". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "casques" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cirques" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #211,634 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "casques" and "cirques" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cirques vs conques". 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 #211,634 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