cartvscorkConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#37,713
“cart” frequency rank
#46,088
“cork” frequency rank
83801
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cart cork
Definition Charrette, chariot. Saut composé d'une rotation faisant passer la planche par dessus la tête.

Where the eye mixes cart and cork

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

4 ch
cart
4 ch
cork

Look-alike desk: cart vs cork

A purely visual mix-up. cart (\kɑɹt\) and cork (\kɔʁk\) 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 83801, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cart is recorded at frequency rank #37,713, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɑɹt\. cork is at rank #46,088, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔʁk\.

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 83801, this pair ranks #14,142 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cart vs cork

Shared letters: cr. Private to "cart": at. Private to "cork": ko.

"cart" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "cork" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cart ← acrt · carrt · cartt · catr · ccart · crat
  • cork ← ccork · cokr · corkk · corrk · crok · ocrk

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cart" for "cork" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kɑɹt\ versus \kɔʁk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cart" vs "cork" - which ranks higher?
"cart" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,713 in our French list, against #46,088 for "cork". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "cart" and "cork" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cart" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cork" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #14,142 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cart" and "cork" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs cork". 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 #14,142 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