cálciovscascoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#12,642
“cálcio” frequency rank
#14,093
“casco” frequency rank
26735
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cálcio casco
Definition elemento químico de símbolo Ca, número atômico 20 e massa atômica relativa 40,078; não é encontrado livre na natureza, apesar de ser o quinto elemento mais abundante do planeta; é encontrado na forma de carbonatos, sulfatos, fluoretos, fosfatos, silicatos e boratos, como mármore, giz, pedra e cal; tem importantes aplicações nas ligas de chumbo e alumínio e como desoxidante de ferro, aço e cobre invólucro do crânio

Where the eye mixes cálcio and casco

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cálcio runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against casco's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
cálcio
5 ch
casco

Visual trap between cálcio and casco

A purely visual mix-up. cálcio (/ˈkałsju/) and casco (/ˈkaʃ.ku/) 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 26735, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cálcio is recorded at frequency rank #12,642, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkałsju/. casco is at rank #14,093, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkaʃ.ku/.

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 26735, this pair ranks #42,357 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cálcio vs casco

Shared letters: co. Private to "cálcio": ilá. Private to "casco": as.

"cálcio" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "casco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • casco ← acsco · cacso · cascco · casoc · cassco · ccasco · csaco

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cálcio" and "casco" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkałsju/ versus /ˈkaʃ.ku/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "cálcio" or "casco" show up more?
"cálcio" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,642 in our Portuguese list, against #14,093 for "casco". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "cálcio" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "casco" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #42,357 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cálcio" and "casco" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "casco vs caução". 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 #42,357 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