cacauvscacoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#9,010
“cacau” frequency rank
#21,952
“caco” frequency rank
30962
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cacau caco
Definition fruto do cacaueiro (ou cacauzeiro), cuja semente é usada na produção de chocolate e manteiga de cacau fragmento ou pedaço quebrado de louça, barro, vidro, mármore etc

Letter map: cacau vs caco

Shared letters muted; letters that set cacau and caco apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
cacau
4 ch
caco

Corpus notes: cacau and caco

cacau and caco 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 30962, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cacau is recorded at frequency rank #9,010, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɐ.ˈkaw/. caco is at rank #21,952, tagged as anoun.

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 30962, this pair ranks #37,270 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cacau vs caco

Shared letters: ac. Private to "cacau": u. Private to "caco": o.

"cacau" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "caco" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cacauaccau · caacu · caccau · cacua · ccaau · ccacau
  • cacoacco · cacco · caoc · ccaco · ccao

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cacau" and "caco" mean the same thing in a sentence?
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, "cacau" or "caco"?
"cacau" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,010 in our Portuguese list, against #21,952 for "caco". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "cacau" vs "caco" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cacau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "caco" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,270 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cacau" and "caco" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caco vs ciao". 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 #37,270 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