carovscryConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#2,178
“caro” frequency rank
#12,412
“cry” frequency rank
14590
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature caro cry
Definition cujo preço é elevado choro

Letter map: caro vs cry

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

4 ch
caro
3 ch
cry

Part-of-speech tell for caro / cry

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: caro is anadjective and cryanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14590, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

caro is recorded at frequency rank #2,178, classified as anadj. cry is at rank #12,412, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɹaɪ̯/.

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 14590, this pair ranks #57,449 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of caro vs cry

Shared letters: cr. Private to "caro": ao. Private to "cry": y.

"caro" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cry" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caroacro · caor · ccaro · crao

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "caro" for "cry" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "caro" is an adjective and "cry" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "caro" or "cry" show up more?
"caro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,178 in our Portuguese list, against #12,412 for "cry". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "caro" and "cry".

  • Full dictionary entry for "caro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cry" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #57,449 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "caro" and "cry" 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 #57,449 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