cabelovscamelTell them apart

Which to use

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

#930
“cabelo” frequency rank
#38,166
“camel” frequency rank
39096
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cabelo camel
Definition pelos que crescem na cabeça do ser humano camelo

Where the eye mixes cabelo and camel

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
cabelo
5 ch
camel

Visual trap between cabelo and camel

A purely visual mix-up. cabelo (/kɐ.ˈbe.lu/) and camel (/'kæməl/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39096, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cabelo is recorded at frequency rank #930, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɐ.ˈbe.lu/. camel is at rank #38,166, tagged as anoun, pronounced /'kæməl/.

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 39096, this pair ranks #27,244 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cabelo vs camel

Shared letters: acel. Private to "cabelo": bo. Private to "camel": m.

"cabelo" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "camel" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cabeloacbelo · cabbelo · cabello · cabeol · cableo · caeblo · cbaelo · ccabelo
  • camelacmel · caeml · camell · camle · cammel · ccamel · cmael

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cabelo" for "camel" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/kɐ.ˈbe.lu/ versus /'kæməl/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cabelo" vs "camel" - which ranks higher?
"cabelo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #930 in our Portuguese list, against #38,166 for "camel". 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 "cabelo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "camel" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #27,244 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cabelo" and "camel" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "camel vs camelot". 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 #27,244 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