Which to use
“cara” is a preposition and “caro” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #195
- “cara” frequency rank
- #2,178
- “caro” frequency rank
- 2373
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cara | caro |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | em direção a, para, contra | cujo preço é elevado |
Letter map: cara vs caro
Shared letters muted; letters that set cara and caro apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.
Role in the sentence - cara and caro
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cara is apreposition and caroanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “cara” becomes o in “caro”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2373, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cara is recorded at frequency rank #195, classified as aprep. caro is at rank #2,178, tagged as anadj.
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 2373, this pair ranks #73,037 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of cara vs caro
Shared letters: acr. Private to "cara": -. Private to "caro": o.
"cara" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "caro" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "cara" for "caro" ever safe?
Which is more common, "cara" or "caro"?
What to do next
Pair "cara" vs "caro" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "cara" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "caro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #73,037 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cara" and "caro" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caro vs ciao". 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 #73,037 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.