cairvscatTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#1,522
“cair” frequency rank
#7,740
“cat” frequency rank
9262
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cair cat
Definition dar queda gato (Felis catus)

Letter map: cair vs cat

Shared letters muted; letters that set cair and cat apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
cair
3 ch
cat

Part-of-speech tell for cair / cat

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cair is averb and catanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9262, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cair is recorded at frequency rank #1,522, classified as averb. cat is at rank #7,740, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kʰaʰt̪/.

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 9262, this pair ranks #64,231 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cair vs cat

Shared letters: ac. Private to "cair": ir. Private to "cat": t.

"cair" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "cat" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cairacir · cairr · cari · ccair · ciar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cair" for "cat" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cair" is a verb and "cat" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cair" vs "cat" - which ranks higher?
"cair" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,522 in our Portuguese list, against #7,740 for "cat". 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 "cat" 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 "cat" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,231 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cair" and "cat" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cat vs chau". 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 #64,231 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