cabeçavscabinaWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“cabeça” and “cabina” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#361
“cabeça” frequency rank
#45,224
“cabina” frequency rank
45585
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cabeça cabina
Definition parte do corpo humano, onde se localizam o cérebro, protegido pelo crânio, e a face, ligada ao tronco pelo pescoço compartimento de navio ou trem

Where the eye mixes cabeça and cabina

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cabeça and cabina follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
cabeça
6 ch
cabina

Visual trap between cabeça and cabina

A purely visual mix-up. cabeça (/kɐ.ˈbe.sɐ/) and cabina (/ka.ˈbi.nɐ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45585, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cabeça is recorded at frequency rank #361, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɐ.ˈbe.sɐ/. cabina is at rank #45,224, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ka.ˈbi.nɐ/.

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 45585, this pair ranks #19,802 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cabeça vs cabina

Shared letters: abc. Private to "cabeça": eç. Private to "cabina": in.

"cabeça" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "cabina" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cabina ← acbina · cabbina · cabian · cabinna · cabnia · caibna · cbaina · ccabina

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cabeça" for "cabina" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/kɐ.ˈbe.sɐ/ versus /ka.ˈbi.nɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cabeça" or "cabina"?
"cabeça" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #361 in our Portuguese list, against #45,224 for "cabina". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cabeça" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cabina" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,802 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cabeça" and "cabina" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cabina vs carabina". 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 #19,802 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