cargosvscarmesConfusable pair

Which to use

“cargos” and “carmes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#34,920
“cargos” frequency rank
#30,089
“carmes” frequency rank
65009
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cargos carmes
Definition Pluriel de cargo. Pluriel de carme.

Where the eye mixes cargos and carmes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cargos and carmes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
cargos
6 ch
carmes

Why the eye confuses cargos with carmes

A purely visual mix-up. cargos (\kaʁ.ɡo\) and carmes (\kaʁm\) 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 65009, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cargos is recorded at frequency rank #34,920, classified as anoun, pronounced \kaʁ.ɡo\. carmes is at rank #30,089, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kaʁm\.

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 65009, this pair ranks #74,306 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cargos vs carmes

Shared letters: acrs. Private to "cargos": go. Private to "carmes": em.

"cargos" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "carmes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cargos ← acrgos · cagros · carggos · cargoss · cargso · carogs · carrgos · ccargos
  • carmes ← acrmes · camres · carems · carmess · carmmes · carmse · carrmes · ccarmes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cargos" and "carmes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kaʁ.ɡo\ versus \kaʁm\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cargos" vs "carmes" - which ranks higher?
"carmes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,089 in our French list, against #34,920 for "cargos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cargos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "carmes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,306 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cargos" and "carmes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cargos vs carpes". 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 #74,306 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list