cerca de

phrase

The verdict

“cerca de” is uncommon Portuguese (outside the top frequency list), classed as a phrase. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency Portuguese
8
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - aproximadamente; mais ou menos

Corpus desk

Index PT-cerca-de · cerca de · Portuguese

cerca de · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "C" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

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.

Key facts for cerca de
PropertyValue
Headwordcerca de
LanguagePortuguese
Part of speechPhrase
Letters8
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Cauda longa: rank de “cerca de” em português

cerca defica fora das 100.000 palavras portuguesas mais frequentes, na cauda longa de vocabulário técnico, arcaico ou raro, onde a dúvida ortográfica aperta.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

cerca de is uncommon Portuguese outside the top frequency list, classed as aphrase. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "aproximadamente; mais ou menos".

Zero misspellings are on record for cerca de in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct Portuguese form is cerca de, spelled C-E-R-C-A- -D-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    aproximadamente; mais ou menos

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how cerca de appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Existem cerca de 100 mil espécies diferentes de besouro.

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "cerca de"?
"cerca de" is spelled C-E-R-C-A- -D-E.
What does "cerca de" mean?
As a phrase, "cerca de" means: aproximadamente; mais ou menos
What language does "cerca de" come from?
"cerca de" is a Portuguese word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list