cabovscalWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,092
“cabo” frequency rank
#11,223
“cal” frequency rank
12315
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cabo cal
Definition patente militar abaixo do sargento e acima do soldado nome vulgar do óxido de cálcio (também chamado cal viva, cal virgem ou cal cáustica)

Letter map: cabo vs cal

Shared letters muted; letters that set cabo and cal apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
cabo
3 ch
cal

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

cabo and cal are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12315, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cabo is recorded at frequency rank #1,092, classified as anoun. cal is at rank #11,223, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkaɫ/.

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 12315, this pair ranks #60,335 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cabo vs cal

Shared letters: ac. Private to "cabo": bo. Private to "cal": l.

"cabo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cal" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caboacbo · cabbo · caob · cbao · ccabo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cabo" and "cal" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "cabo" or "cal"?
"cabo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,092 in our Portuguese list, against #11,223 for "cal". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "cabo" and "cal". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cabo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cal" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #60,335 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cabo" and "cal" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cal vs chau". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list