cardvsCargoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“card” and “Cargo” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#11,840
“card” frequency rank
#24,666
“Cargo” frequency rank
36506
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature card Cargo
Definition Karte, auch Card die Ladung eines Schiffes

Where the eye mixes card and Cargo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
card
5 ch
Cargo

Why the eye confuses card with Cargo

A purely visual mix-up. card ([kɑːd]) and Cargo ([ˈkaʁɡo]) 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 36506, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

card is recorded at frequency rank #11,840, classified as anoun, pronounced [kɑːd]. Cargo is at rank #24,666, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈkaʁɡo].

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 36506, this pair ranks #1,613,923 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of card vs Cargo

Shared letters: acr. Private to "card": d. Private to "Cargo": go.

"card" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "Cargo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cardacrd · cadr · cardd · carrd · ccard · crad
  • Cargoacrgo · cagro · carggo · carog · carrgo · ccargo · crago

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "card" and "Cargo" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([kɑːd] versus [ˈkaʁɡo]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "card" or "Cargo" show up more?
"card" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,840 in our German list, against #24,666 for "Cargo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "card" and "Cargo" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "card" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Cargo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,613,923 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "card" and "Cargo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Cargo vs carr". 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 #1,613,923 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list