cadavsclãTell them apart

Quick tell: cada is a pronoun, clã is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cada” is a pronoun and “clã” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#144
“cada” frequency rank
#8,588
“clã” frequency rank
8732
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cada clã
Definition indica, individualizando, um elemento de um grupo ou conjunto: grupo de famílias que se consideram descendentes dos mesmos ancestrais

Where the eye mixes cada and clã

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

4 ch
cada
3 ch
clã

Why the eye confuses cada with clã

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cada is /ˈkɐ.dɐ/ while clã is /ˈklɐ̃/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8732, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cada is recorded at frequency rank #144, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈkɐ.dɐ/. clã is at rank #8,588, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈklɐ̃/.

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 8732, this pair ranks #64,930 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cada vs clã

Shared letters: c. Private to "cada": ad. Private to "clã": .

"cada" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "clã" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cadaacda · caad · cadda · ccada · cdaa

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cada" and "clã" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cada" is a pronoun and "clã" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "cada" or "clã" show up more?
"cada" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #144 in our Portuguese list, against #8,588 for "clã". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "cada" and "clã" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cada" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "clã" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,930 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cada" and "clã" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chau vs clã". 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 #64,930 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