causevschaudeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#332
“cause” frequency rank
#3,987
“chaude” frequency rank
4319
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cause chaude
Definition Ce qui fait qu’une chose est ou s’opère. Degré de température nécessaire pour travailler certaines matières.

Where the eye mixes cause and chaude

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
cause
6 ch
chaude

Look-alike desk: cause vs chaude

A purely visual mix-up. cause (\koz\) and chaude (\ʃod\) 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 4319, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cause is recorded at frequency rank #332, classified as anoun, pronounced \koz\. chaude is at rank #3,987, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʃod\.

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 4319, this pair ranks #431,910 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cause vs chaude

Shared letters: aceu. Private to "cause": s. Private to "chaude": dh.

"cause" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "chaude" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • causeacuse · casue · caues · ccause · cuase
  • chaudecahude · cchaude · chadue · chaudde · chaued · chhaude · chuade · hcaude

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cause" for "chaude" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\koz\ versus \ʃod\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cause" or "chaude"?
"cause" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #332 in our French list, against #3,987 for "chaude". 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 "cause" and "chaude" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cause" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chaude" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #431,910 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cause" and "chaude" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cause 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 #431,910 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