carnevscauseTell them apart

Quick tell: carne is a noun, cause is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“carne” is a noun and “cause” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,280
“carne” frequency rank
#15,559
“cause” frequency rank
16839
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature carne cause
Definition Músculos y vísceras del cuerpo de los animales, por contraposición a las partes óseas. Primera persona del singular (yo) del presente de subjuntivo de causar.

Where the eye mixes carne and cause

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

5 ch
carne
5 ch
cause

Visual trap between carne and cause

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: carne is [ˈkaɾne] while cause is [ˈkawse]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16839, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

carne is recorded at frequency rank #1,280, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈkaɾne]. cause is at rank #15,559, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈkawse].

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 16839, this pair ranks #274,569 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of carne vs cause

Shared letters: ace. Private to "carne": nr. Private to "cause": su.

"carne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cause" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • carneacrne · canre · caren · carnne · carrne · ccarne
  • causeacuse · casue · caues · causse · ccause · cuase

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "carne" and "cause" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "carne" is a noun and "cause" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "carne" or "cause" show up more?
"carne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,280 in our Spanish list, against #15,559 for "cause". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "carne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cause" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #274,569 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "carne" and "cause" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "catre vs cause". 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 #274,569 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