carrévscartWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: carré is a adjective, cart is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“carré” is an adjective and “cart” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,386
“carré” frequency rank
#37,713
“cart” frequency rank
41099
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature carré cart
Definition En forme de rectangle dont les côtés sont tous égaux. Charrette, chariot.

Where the eye mixes carré and cart

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

5 ch
carré
4 ch
cart

Why the eye confuses carré with cart

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: carré is \ka.ʁe\ while cart is \kɑɹt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41099, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

carré is recorded at frequency rank #3,386, classified as anadj, pronounced \ka.ʁe\. cart is at rank #37,713, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɑɹt\.

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 41099, this pair ranks #235,560 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of carré vs cart

Shared letters: acr. Private to "carré": é. Private to "cart": t.

"carré" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cart" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cartacrt · carrt · cartt · catr · ccart · crat

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "carré" for "cart" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "carré" is an adjective and "cart" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "carré" vs "cart" - which ranks higher?
"carré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,386 in our French list, against #37,713 for "cart". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "carré" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cart" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #235,560 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "carré" and "cart" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cart vs ciro". 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 #235,560 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