cárievscarroWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,971
“cárie” frequency rank
#550
“carro” frequency rank
41521
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cárie carro
Definition ulceração nos dentes e ossos, que os destrói progressivamente veículo com a capacidade de se movimentar guiado por um motorista, geralmente com a finalidade de transportar pessoas

Where the eye mixes cárie and carro

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. cárie (CVCVV) and carro (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
cárie
5 ch
carro

Look-alike desk: cárie vs carro

A purely visual mix-up. cárie (/ˈka.ɾji/) and carro ([ˈkäɦʊ]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41521, 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/. carro is at rank #550, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈkäɦʊ].

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 41521, this pair ranks #24,392 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cárie vs carro

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

"cárie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "carro" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • carro ← acrro · caror · ccarro · craro

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cárie" and "carro" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈka.ɾji/ versus [ˈkäɦʊ]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cárie" vs "carro" - which ranks higher?
"carro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #550 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

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cárie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "carro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #24,392 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cárie" and "carro" 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 #24,392 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