cartevscureWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#716
“carte” frequency rank
#7,048
“cure” frequency rank
7764
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature carte cure
Definition Représentation géométrique conventionnelle, en positions relatives, de phénomènes concrets ou abstraits (pays, région, ville, astres dans le ciel, etc.), localisables dans l’espace, à échelle réduite. Soin, souci. — En ce sens, il est surtout usité dans l’expression : n’avoir cure.

Where the eye mixes carte and cure

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

5 ch
carte
4 ch
cure

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. carte (\kaʁt\) and cure (\kyʁ\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7764, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

carte is recorded at frequency rank #716, classified as anoun, pronounced \kaʁt\. cure is at rank #7,048, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kyʁ\.

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 7764, this pair ranks #422,188 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of carte vs cure

Shared letters: cer. Private to "carte": at. Private to "cure": u.

"carte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • carteacrte · caret · carrte · cartte · catre · ccarte · crate
  • cureccure · cuer · curre · ucre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "carte" and "cure" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kaʁt\ versus \kyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "carte" or "cure"?
"carte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #716 in our French list, against #7,048 for "cure". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "carte" and "cure". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "carte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #422,188 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "carte" and "cure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "curage vs cure". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list