cargavscarrãoTell them apart

Which to use

“carga” and “carrão” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#2,309
“carga” frequency rank
#30,869
“carrão” frequency rank
33178
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature carga carrão
Definition o que pode ser ou é transportado por pessoas, animais ou veículos andorinhão-real, (Tachymarptis melba)

Where the eye mixes carga and carrão

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. carga runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against carrão's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
carga
6 ch
carrão

Visual trap between carga and carrão

A purely visual mix-up. carga (/ˈkaɾ.ɡɐ/) and carrão (singular: /ka.'raŋ/ ou /ka.'raw/) 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 33178, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

carga is recorded at frequency rank #2,309, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkaɾ.ɡɐ/. carrão is at rank #30,869, tagged as anoun, pronounced singular: /ka.'raŋ/ ou /ka.'raw/.

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 33178, this pair ranks #34,406 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of carga vs carrão

Shared letters: acr. Private to "carga": g. Private to "carrão": oã.

"carga" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "carrão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • carga ← acrga · cagra · carag · cargga · carrga · ccarga · craga

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "carga" for "carrão" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkaɾ.ɡɐ/ versus singular: /ka.'raŋ/ ou /ka.'raw/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "carga" vs "carrão" - which ranks higher?
"carga" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,309 in our Portuguese list, against #30,869 for "carrão". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "carga" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "carrão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #34,406 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "carga" and "carrão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "carrão vs caução". 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 #34,406 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