carevscuteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#18,475
“care” frequency rank
#47,692
“cute” frequency rank
66167
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature care cute
Definition (Phytotoma rara) Ave de la familia Phytotomidae. Mide 19 cm. De plumaje en distintos tonos de pardo con secciones negruzcas, frente y corona pardo rojizas, pico corto y grueso de color negro e iris rojos, con dimorfismo sexual. Se alimenta de plantas y de brotes tiernos de árboles. Ave solitaria, que en algunas épocas del año forma pequeñas bandadas. Frecuenta campos, huertos y jardines. (Coragyps atratus) Tipo de ave rapaz de América que se alimenta de carroña, de plumaje negro, cabeza y cuello calvos y grisosos, y patas grises.

Where the eye mixes care and cute

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. care and cute follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
care
4 ch
cute

Look-alike desk: care vs cute

A purely visual mix-up. care ([ˈkaɾe]) and cute ([ˈkut̪e]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66167, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

care is recorded at frequency rank #18,475, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈkaɾe]. cute is at rank #47,692, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈkut̪e].

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 66167, this pair ranks #40,586 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of care vs cute

Shared letters: ce. Private to "care": ar. Private to "cute": tu.

"care" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cute" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • care ← carre · ccare
  • cute ← ccute · ctue · cuet · cutte · ucte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "care" for "cute" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([ˈkaɾe] versus [ˈkut̪e]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "care" or "cute" show up more?
"care" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,475 in our Spanish list, against #47,692 for "cute". 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 "care" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cute" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #40,586 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "care" and "cute" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cuc vs cute". 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 #40,586 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list