carevsCargoConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#11,402
“care” frequency rank
#24,666
“Cargo” frequency rank
36068
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature care Cargo
Definition Sorge, Kummer die Ladung eines Schiffes

Where the eye mixes care and Cargo

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

4 ch
care
5 ch
Cargo

Visual trap between care and Cargo

A purely visual mix-up. care ([keə]) 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 36068, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

care is recorded at frequency rank #11,402, classified as anoun, pronounced [keə]. 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 36068, this pair ranks #1,624,744 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of care vs Cargo

Shared letters: acr. Private to "care": e. Private to "Cargo": go.

"care" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Cargo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • careacre · caer · carre · ccare · crae
  • Cargoacrgo · cagro · carggo · carog · carrgo · ccargo · crago

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "care" and "Cargo" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([keə] versus [ˈkaʁɡo]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "care" vs "Cargo" - which ranks higher?
"care" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,402 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.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "care" 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 #1,624,744 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "care" 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 #1,624,744 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