Which to use
“café” and “chave” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #931
- “café” frequency rank
- #1,329
- “chave” frequency rank
- 2260
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | café | chave |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | fruto gerado pelo cafeeiro | objeto usado para abrir e fechar uma fechadura, algemas ou cadeado |
Where the eye mixes café and chave
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between café and chave
A purely visual mix-up. café (/kɐ.ˈfɛ/) and chave (/ˈʃa.vɨ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2260, 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/. chave is at rank #1,329, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈʃa.vɨ/.
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 2260, this pair ranks #73,181 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of café vs chave
Shared letters: ac. Private to "café": fé. Private to "chave": ehv.
"café" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "chave" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- chave ← cahve · cchave · chaev · chavve · chhave · chvae · hcave
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "café" for "chave" ever safe?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "café" or "chave" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "café" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "chave" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #73,181 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "café" and "chave" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chau vs chave". 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 #73,181 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.