caddyvscardConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#30,351
“caddy” frequency rank
#964
“card” frequency rank
31315
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature caddy card
Definition A small box or tin (can) with a lid for holding dried tea leaves used to brew tea. A playing card.

Where the eye mixes caddy and card

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

5 ch
caddy
4 ch
card

Look-alike desk: caddy vs card

A purely visual mix-up. caddy (/ˈkædi/) and card (/kɑːd/) 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 31315, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

caddy is recorded at frequency rank #30,351, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkædi/. card is at rank #964, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɑːd/.

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 31315, this pair ranks #347,147 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of caddy vs card

Shared letters: acd. Private to "caddy": y. Private to "card": r.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caddyacddy · caddyy · cady · cadyd · ccaddy · cdady
  • cardacrd · cadr · cardd · carrd · ccard · crad

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "caddy" for "card" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkædi/ versus /kɑːd/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "caddy" or "card"?
"card" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #964 in our English list, against #30,351 for "caddy". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "caddy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "card" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #347,147 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "caddy" and "card" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caddy vs catty". 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 #347,147 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list