cardvscarrWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#11,840
“card” frequency rank
#49,550
“carr” frequency rank
61390
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature card carr
Definition Karte, auch Card Auto

Where the eye mixes card and carr

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

4 ch
card
4 ch
carr

Visual trap between card and carr

A purely visual mix-up. card ([kɑːd]) and carr ([kaːr]) 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 a single letter - d in “card” becomes r in “carr”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61390, 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]. carr is at rank #49,550, tagged as anoun, pronounced [kaːr].

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 61390, this pair ranks #751,647 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of card vs carr

Shared letters: acr. Private to "card": d. Private to "carr": -.

"card" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "carr" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cardacrd · cadr · cardd · carrd · ccard · crad
  • carracrr · ccarr · crar

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "card" and "carr" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([kɑːd] versus [kaːr]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "card" or "carr" show up more?
"card" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,840 in our German list, against #49,550 for "carr". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "card" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "carr" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #751,647 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "card" and "carr" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "carr vs clair". 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 #751,647 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