Which to use
“caged” is an adjective and “cared” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #26,707
- “caged” frequency rank
- #5,942
- “cared” frequency rank
- 32649
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | caged | cared |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Confined in a cage. | simple past and past participle of care |
Letter map: caged vs cared
Shared letters muted; letters that set caged and cared apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.
Part-of-speech tell for caged / cared
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: caged is anadjective and caredaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - g in “caged” becomes r in “cared”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32649, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
caged is recorded at frequency rank #26,707, classified as anadj. cared is at rank #5,942, tagged as averb, pronounced /kɛɹd/.
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 32649, this pair ranks #336,071 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of caged vs cared
Shared letters: acde. Private to "caged": g. Private to "cared": r.
"caged" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "cared" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "caged" for "cared" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "caged" or "cared" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pair "caged" vs "cared" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "caged" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cared" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #336,071 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "caged" and "cared" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caged vs cates". 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 #336,071 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.