Which to use
“café” and “cake” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #931
- “café” frequency rank
- #26,293
- “cake” frequency rank
- 27224
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | café | cake |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | fruto gerado pelo cafeeiro | bolo |
Where the eye mixes café and cake
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between café and cake
A purely visual mix-up. café (/kɐ.ˈfɛ/) and cake (/keɪk/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27224, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
café is recorded at frequency rank #931, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɐ.ˈfɛ/. cake is at rank #26,293, tagged as anoun, pronounced /keɪk/.
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 27224, this pair ranks #41,790 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of café vs cake
Shared letters: ac. Private to "café": fé. Private to "cake": ek.
"café" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "cake" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- cake ← acke · caek · cakke · ccake · ckae
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "café" for "cake" ever safe?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "café" or "cake" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "café" and "cake" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "café" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cake" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #41,790 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "café" and "cake" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cake vs cárie". 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 #41,790 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.