Which to use
“caries” and “carmes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #38,190
- “caries” frequency rank
- #30,089
- “carmes” frequency rank
- 68279
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | caries | carmes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de carie. | Pluriel de carme. |
Where the eye mixes caries and carmes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: caries vs carmes
A purely visual mix-up. caries (\ka.ʁi\) 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 differ by a single letter - i in “caries” becomes m in “carmes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68279, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
caries is recorded at frequency rank #38,190, classified as anoun, pronounced \ka.ʁi\. 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 68279, this pair ranks #59,797 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of caries vs carmes
Shared letters: acers. Private to "caries": i. Private to "carmes": m.
"caries" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "carmes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "caries" and "carmes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "caries" or "carmes" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "caries" 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 #59,797 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "caries" and "carmes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caries vs carrez". 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 #59,797 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.