cairvscaraWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: cair is a verb, cara is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cair” is a verb and “cara” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,522
“cair” frequency rank
#195
“cara” frequency rank
1717
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cair cara
Definition dar queda em direção a, para, contra

Letter map: cair vs cara

Shared letters muted; letters that set cair and cara apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
cair
4 ch
cara

Part-of-speech tell for cair / cara

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cair is averb and caraapreposition. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1717, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cair is recorded at frequency rank #1,522, classified as averb. cara is at rank #195, tagged as aprep.

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 1717, this pair ranks #73,799 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cair vs cara

Shared letters: acr. Private to "cair": i. Private to "cara": -.

"cair" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "cara" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cairacir · cairr · cari · ccair · ciar
  • caraacra · caar · carra · ccara · craa

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cair" and "cara" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cair" is a verb and "cara" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cair" or "cara"?
"cara" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #195 in our Portuguese list, against #1,522 for "cair". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "cair" vs "cara" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cair" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cara" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #73,799 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cair" and "cara" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cair vs coagir". 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 #73,799 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