casservscausseWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: casser is a verb, causse is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“casser” is a verb and “causse” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,388
“casser” frequency rank
#41,174
“causse” frequency rank
44562
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature casser causse
Definition Briser ; rompre. Nom donné dans le Massif Central à de hauts plateaux calcaires nus et arides.

Where the eye mixes casser and causse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. casser (CVCCVC) and causse (CVVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
casser
6 ch
causse

Why the eye confuses casser with causse

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: casser is \ka.se\ while causse is \kos\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44562, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

casser is recorded at frequency rank #3,388, classified as averb, pronounced \ka.se\. causse is at rank #41,174, 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 44562, this pair ranks #209,551 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of casser vs causse

Shared letters: aces. Private to "casser": r. Private to "causse": u.

"casser" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "causse" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • casser ← acsser · casesr · casserr · cassre · ccasser · csaser
  • causse ← acusse · casuse · ccausse · cuasse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "casser" and "causse" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "casser" is a verb and "causse" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "casser" or "causse" show up more?
"casser" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,388 in our French list, against #41,174 for "causse". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "casser" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "causse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #209,551 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "casser" and "causse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "causse vs causses". 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 #209,551 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