café vs cão, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“café” is a noun and “cão” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#931
“café” frequency rank: #3,065
“cão” frequency rank: 3996
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	café	cão
Definition	fruto gerado pelo cafeeiro	cruel, brutal, dominador

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set café and cão apart are highlighted. They share 1 letter in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch

café

3 ch

cão

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: café is /kɐ.ˈfɛ/ while cão is /ˈkɐ̃ũ̯/. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3996, 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/. cão is at rank #3,065, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈkɐ̃ũ̯/.

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 3996, this pair ranks #71,045 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of café vs cão

Shared letters: c. Private to "café": afé. Private to "cão": oã.

"café" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "cão" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequency comparison

café#931

cão#3,065

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "café" and "cão" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "café" is a noun and "cão" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "café" or "cão"?

"café" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #931 in our Portuguese list, against #3,065 for "cão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering café vs cão

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “café”; for an adjective, it's “cão”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “café” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable