carovscaseTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#2,178
“caro” frequency rank
#6,149
“case” frequency rank
8327
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature caro case
Definition cujo preço é elevado caso

Letter map: caro vs case

Shared letters muted; letters that set caro and case apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
caro
4 ch
case

Part-of-speech tell for caro / case

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: caro is anadjective and caseanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8327, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

caro is recorded at frequency rank #2,178, classified as anadj. case is at rank #6,149, tagged as anoun, pronounced /keɪs/.

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 8327, this pair ranks #65,485 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of caro vs case

Shared letters: ac. Private to "caro": or. Private to "case": es.

"caro" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "case" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caroacro · caor · ccaro · crao
  • caseacse · caes · casse · ccase · csae

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "caro" and "case" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "caro" is an adjective and "case" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "caro" or "case" show up more?
"caro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,178 in our Portuguese list, against #6,149 for "case". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "caro" vs "case" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "caro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "case" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #65,485 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "caro" and "case" 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 #65,485 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