castesvscauséesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#31,394
“castes” frequency rank
#17,897
“causées” frequency rank
49291
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature castes causées
Definition Pluriel de caste. Participe passé féminin pluriel du verbe causer.

Where the eye mixes castes and causées

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

6 ch
castes
7 ch
causées

Visual trap between castes and causées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: castes is \kast\ while causées is \ko.ze\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49291, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

castes is recorded at frequency rank #31,394, classified as anoun, pronounced \kast\. causées is at rank #17,897, tagged as averb, pronounced \ko.ze\.

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 49291, this pair ranks #171,882 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of castes vs causées

Shared letters: aces. Private to "castes": t. Private to "causées": .

"castes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "causées" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • castesacstes · casets · casstes · castess · castse · casttes · catses · ccastes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "castes" and "causées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "castes" is a noun and "causées" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "castes" or "causées" show up more?
"causées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,897 in our French list, against #31,394 for "castes". 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 "castes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "causées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #171,882 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "castes" and "causées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "castes 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 #171,882 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