Which to use
“castes” and “cavités” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #31,394
- “castes” frequency rank
- #17,650
- “cavités” frequency rank
- 49044
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | castes | cavités |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de caste. | Pluriel de cavité. |
Where the eye mixes castes and cavités
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. castes runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against cavités's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: castes vs cavités
A purely visual mix-up. castes (\kast\) and cavités (\ka.vi.te\) 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 49044, 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\. cavités is at rank #17,650, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ka.vi.te\.
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 49044, this pair ranks #173,918 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of castes vs cavités
Shared letters: acst. Private to "castes": e. Private to "cavités": ivé.
"castes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "cavités" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- castes ← acstes · casets · casstes · castess · castse · casttes · catses · ccastes
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "castes" for "cavités" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "castes" or "cavités" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "castes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cavités" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #173,918 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "castes" and "cavités" 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 #173,918 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.