kangvskaoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#27,495
“kang” frequency rank
#47,406
“kao” frequency rank
74901
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature kang kao
Definition Lit en briques chauffé de l’intérieur, au nord de la Chine. Champs

Letter map: kang vs kao

Shared letters muted; letters that set kang and kao apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. kang runs 4 letters (CVCC) against kao's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
kang
3 ch
kao

Pair insight - kang / kao

kang and kao are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74901, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

kang is recorded at frequency rank #27,495, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɑ̃ŋ\. kao is at rank #47,406, tagged as anoun.

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 74901, this pair ranks #35,685 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of kang vs kao

Shared letters: ak. Private to "kang": gn. Private to "kao": o.

"kang" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "kao" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • kang ← akng · kagn · kangg · kanng · kkang · knag

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "kang" for "kao" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "kang" vs "kao" - which ranks higher?
"kang" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,495 in our French list, against #47,406 for "kao". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "kang" and "kao".

  • Full dictionary entry for "kang" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "kao" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #35,685 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "kang" and "kao" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "kao vs ky". 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 #35,685 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