cal
[…]
The verdict
“cal” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #25,938) as an abbreviation. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #25,938
- frequency rank, German
- 1,273
- “C” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 2, 2026) - Kalorie, Gramm-Kalorie
Corpus desk
Index DE-cal · cal · German
cal · rank #25,938 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #25,938
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,273
- PHOTO-FINISH Bürgerhaus
Nearest frequency peer: Bürgerhaus (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “cal”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Bärbel
Bärbel
74,066 corpus weight
- Bündnisses
Bündnisses
74,065 corpus weight
- Bürgerhaus
Bürgerhaus
74,064 corpus weight
- cal
cal
74,063 corpus weight
- cancer
cancer
74,061 corpus weight
- Capri
Capri
74,060 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “cal” sits against the nearest ranked German headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cal |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Abbreviation |
| IPA | […] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #25,938 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cal” sits in German frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for cal is neighbouring look-alikes ("cm", "CD", …), not just typos; it is anabbreviation pronounced […]. Frequency #25,938 among 1,273 “C” headwords. Gloss: "Kalorie, Gramm-Kalorie".
No generated misspelling entries exist for cal in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cm", "CD", "Ch", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct German form is cal, spelled C-A-L.
Definition
- 1Kalorie, Gramm-Kalorie
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 2, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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What does "cal" mean?
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Similar German words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "cal", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked German headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.