cacovscálcioConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#21,952
“caco” frequency rank
#12,642
“cálcio” frequency rank
34594
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature caco cálcio
Definition fragmento ou pedaço quebrado de louça, barro, vidro, mármore etc elemento químico de símbolo Ca, número atômico 20 e massa atômica relativa 40,078; não é encontrado livre na natureza, apesar de ser o quinto elemento mais abundante do planeta; é encontrado na forma de carbonatos, sulfatos, fluoretos, fosfatos, silicatos e boratos, como mármore, giz, pedra e cal; tem importantes aplicações nas ligas de chumbo e alumínio e como desoxidante de ferro, aço e cobre

Letter map: caco vs cálcio

Shared letters muted; letters that set caco and cálcio apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. caco runs 4 letters (CVCV) against cálcio's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
caco
6 ch
cálcio

Corpus notes: caco and cálcio

caco and cálcio 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34594, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

caco is recorded at frequency rank #21,952, classified as anoun. cálcio is at rank #12,642, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkałsju/.

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 34594, this pair ranks #32,630 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of caco vs cálcio

Shared letters: co. Private to "caco": a. Private to "cálcio": ilá.

"caco" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cálcio" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caco ← acco · cacco · caoc · ccaco · ccao

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "caco" and "cálcio" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "caco" or "cálcio" show up more?
"cálcio" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,642 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

You've compared "caco" and "cálcio". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "caco" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cálcio" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,630 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "caco" and "cálcio" 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 #32,630 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