cassevscaussesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,411
“casse” frequency rank
#48,974
“causses” frequency rank
51385
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature casse causses
Definition Boîte plate et découverte, composée de deux parties, le haut de casse (majuscules) et le bas de casse (minuscules), et divisée en petites cases pour chaque caractère. Pluriel de causse.

Where the eye mixes casse and causses

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. casse runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against causses's 7 (CVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
casse
7 ch
causses

Visual trap between casse and causses

A purely visual mix-up. casse (\kɑs\) and causses (\kos\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51385, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

casse is recorded at frequency rank #2,411, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɑs\. causses is at rank #48,974, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kos\.

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 51385, this pair ranks #155,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of casse vs causses

Shared letters: aces. Private to "casse": -. Private to "causses": u.

"casse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "causses" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • casse ← acsse · cases · ccasse · csase
  • causses ← acusses · casuses · causess · caussess · caussse · ccausses · cuasses

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "casse" and "causses" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kɑs\ versus \kos\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "casse" or "causses"?
"casse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,411 in our French list, against #48,974 for "causses". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "casse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "causses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #155,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "casse" and "causses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "causses vs crosses". 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 #155,399 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