caisvscarConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#10,845
“cais” frequency rank
#7,505
“car” frequency rank
18350
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cais car
Definition lugar à beira-mar, na margem do rio, nas estações de caminho-de-ferro ou do metropolitano apropriado para o embarque e desembarque de pessoas ou mercadorias carro

Letter map: cais vs car

Shared letters muted; letters that set cais and car apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
cais
3 ch
car

Spelling & dictionary notes on cais vs car

cais and car are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18350, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cais is recorded at frequency rank #10,845, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkajʃ/. car is at rank #7,505, tagged as anoun.

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 18350, this pair ranks #52,653 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cais vs car

Shared letters: ac. Private to "cais": is. Private to "car": r.

"cais" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "car" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caisacis · caiss · casi · ccais · cias

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cais" and "car" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "cais" or "car"?
"car" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,505 in our Portuguese list, against #10,845 for "cais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "cais" and "car".

  • Full dictionary entry for "cais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "car" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #52,653 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cais" and "car" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "car 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 #52,653 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