carecavscarreraTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#10,848
“careca” frequency rank
#49,341
“carrera” frequency rank
60189
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature careca carrera
Definition falta de cabelo na cabeça; calvo rua

Where the eye mixes careca and carrera

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. careca runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against carrera's 7 (CVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
careca
7 ch
carrera

Visual trap between careca and carrera

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: careca is /kɐ.ˈɾɛ.kɐ/ while carrera is /kaˈreɾa/. 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 60189, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

careca is recorded at frequency rank #10,848, classified as anadj, pronounced /kɐ.ˈɾɛ.kɐ/. carrera is at rank #49,341, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kaˈreɾa/.

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 60189, this pair ranks #7,789 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of careca vs carrera

Shared letters: acer. Private to "careca": -. Private to "carrera": -.

"careca" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "carrera" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • careca ← carcea · careac · carecca · carreca · ccareca · craeca
  • carrera ← acrrera · carera · carerra · carrear · carrerra · carrrea · ccarrera · crarera

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "careca" for "carrera" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "careca" is an adjective and "carrera" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "careca" or "carrera"?
"careca" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,848 in our Portuguese list, against #49,341 for "carrera". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "careca" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "carrera" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #7,789 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "careca" and "carrera" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "carreiro vs carrera". 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 #7,789 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list