CainvschinaWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#22,548
“Cain” frequency rank
#1,005
“china” frequency rank
23553
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Cain china
Definition Caim tipo de prato usado em baterias

Where the eye mixes Cain and china

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Cain runs 4 letters (CVVC) against china's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
Cain
5 ch
china

Look-alike desk: Cain vs china

A purely visual mix-up. Cain (/keɪn/.) and china (/ʃi.na/) 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 23553, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Cain is recorded at frequency rank #22,548, classified as anoun, pronounced /keɪn/.. china is at rank #1,005, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ʃi.na/.

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 23553, this pair ranks #46,260 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Cain vs china

Shared letters: acin. Private to "Cain": -. Private to "china": h.

"Cain" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "china" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Cain ← acin · cainn · cani · ccain · cian
  • china ← cchina · chhina · chian · chinna · chnia · cihna · hcina

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Cain" and "china" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/keɪn/. versus /ʃi.na/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "Cain" or "china" show up more?
"china" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,005 in our Portuguese list, against #22,548 for "Cain". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Cain" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "china" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #46,260 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Cain" and "china" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Cain vs cânon". 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 #46,260 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