cárievscaroWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cárie is a noun, caro is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#40,971
“cárie” frequency rank
#2,178
“caro” frequency rank
43149
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cárie caro
Definition ulceração nos dentes e ossos, que os destrói progressivamente cujo preço é elevado

Letter map: cárie vs caro

Shared letters muted; letters that set cárie and caro apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. cárie runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against caro's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
cárie
4 ch
caro

Role in the sentence - cárie and caro

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cárie is anoun and caroanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43149, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cárie is recorded at frequency rank #40,971, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈka.ɾji/. 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 43149, this pair ranks #22,526 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cárie vs caro

Shared letters: cr. Private to "cárie": eiá. Private to "caro": ao.

"cárie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "caro" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caro ← acro · caor · ccaro · crao

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cárie" for "caro" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cárie" is a noun and "caro" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cárie" or "caro"?
"caro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,178 in our Portuguese list, against #40,971 for "cárie". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "cárie" and "caro". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cárie" 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 #22,526 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cárie" and "caro" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cárie vs carpet". 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 #22,526 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