cavitévscécitéTell them apart

Which to use

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

#15,828
“cavité” frequency rank
#27,396
“cécité” frequency rank
43224
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cavité cécité
Definition Creux, vide dans un corps solide. État d’une personne aveugle.

Where the eye mixes cavité and cécité

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cavité and cécité follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
cavité
6 ch
cécité

Why the eye confuses cavité with cécité

A purely visual mix-up. cavité (\ka.vi.te\) and cécité (\se.si.te\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43224, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cavité is recorded at frequency rank #15,828, classified as anoun, pronounced \ka.vi.te\. cécité is at rank #27,396, tagged as anoun, pronounced \se.si.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 43224, this pair ranks #219,723 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cavité vs cécité

Shared letters: cité. Private to "cavité": av. Private to "cécité": -.

"cavité" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "cécité" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cavité" and "cécité" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ka.vi.te\ versus \se.si.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cavité" or "cécité"?
"cavité" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,828 in our French list, against #27,396 for "cécité". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cavité" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cécité" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #219,723 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cavité" and "cécité" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cécité vs certe". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #219,723 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