castevscathWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#16,315
“caste” frequency rank
#40,167
“cath” frequency rank
56482
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature caste cath
Definition Chacune des tribus ou classes qui partagent la société de certains pays comme l’Inde ou l’ancienne Égypte. Chat (animal).

Where the eye mixes caste and cath

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

5 ch
caste
4 ch
cath

Why the eye confuses caste with cath

A purely visual mix-up. caste (\kast\) and cath (\kaːθ\) 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 56482, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

caste is recorded at frequency rank #16,315, classified as anoun, pronounced \kast\. cath is at rank #40,167, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kaːθ\.

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 56482, this pair ranks #120,860 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of caste vs cath

Shared letters: act. Private to "caste": es. Private to "cath": h.

"caste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cath" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • casteacste · caset · casste · castte · catse · ccaste · csate
  • cathacth · cathh · catth · ccath · ctah

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "caste" and "cath" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kast\ versus \kaːθ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "caste" or "cath"?
"caste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,315 in our French list, against #40,167 for "cath". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "caste" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cath" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #120,860 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "caste" and "cath" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "canto vs cath". 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 #120,860 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