cabalvscabalaTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#36,355
“cabal” frequency rank
#37,212
“cabala” frequency rank
73567
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cabal cabala
Definition satisfatório; completo; rigoroso; pleno interpretação mística da Bíblia entre os judeus

Letter map: cabal vs cabala

Shared letters muted; letters that set cabal and cabala apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. cabal runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against cabala's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
cabal
6 ch
cabala

Part-of-speech tell for cabal / cabala

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cabal is anadjective and cabalaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “cabal” sits inside “cabala”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73567, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cabal is recorded at frequency rank #36,355, classified as anadj. cabala is at rank #37,212, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɐ.ˈba.lɐ/.

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 73567, this pair ranks #2,743 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cabal vs cabala

Shared letters: abcl. Private to "cabal": -. Private to "cabala": -.

"cabal" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "cabala" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cabal ← acbal · caabl · caball · cabbal · cabla · cbaal · ccabal
  • cabala ← acbala · caabla · cabaal · caballa · cabbala · cablaa · cbaala · ccabala

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cabal" and "cabala" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cabal" is an adjective and "cabala" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cabal" vs "cabala" - which ranks higher?
"cabal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,355 in our Portuguese list, against #37,212 for "cabala". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "cabal" and "cabala".

  • Full dictionary entry for "cabal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cabala" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #2,743 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cabal" and "cabala" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cabala vs cabina". 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 #2,743 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