caresvsCESWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cares is a verb, CES is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cares” is a verb and “CES” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,606
“cares” frequency rank
#22,610
“CES” frequency rank
26216
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cares CES
Definition third-person singular simple present indicative of care Center for Employee Services.

Letter map: cares vs CES

Shared letters muted; letters that set cares and CES apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
cares
3 ch
CES

Part-of-speech tell for cares / CES

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cares is averb and CESaname. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26216, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cares is recorded at frequency rank #3,606, classified as averb, pronounced /kɛɹz/. CES is at rank #22,610, tagged as aname.

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 26216, this pair ranks #388,354 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cares vs CES

Shared letters: ces. Private to "cares": ar. Private to "CES": -.

"cares" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "CES" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • carescaers · carres · carse · ccares · craes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cares" for "CES" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cares" is a verb and "CES" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "cares" or "CES" show up more?
"cares" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,606 in our English list, against #22,610 for "CES". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "cares" and "CES".

  • Full dictionary entry for "cares" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "CES" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #388,354 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cares" and "CES" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CES vs CGT". 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 #388,354 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