calevscasoTell them apart

Quick tell: cale is a noun, caso is a conjunction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cale” is a noun and “caso” is a conjunction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,719
“cale” frequency rank
#181
“caso” frequency rank
17900
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cale caso
Definition calço, cunha, escora, apoio na hipótese de; se

Where the eye mixes cale and caso

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
cale
4 ch
caso

Look-alike desk: cale vs caso

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cale is /kal/ while caso is /ˈka.zu/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs conjunction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17900, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cale is recorded at frequency rank #17,719, classified as anoun, pronounced /kal/. caso is at rank #181, tagged as aconj, pronounced /ˈka.zu/.

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 17900, this pair ranks #53,231 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cale vs caso

Shared letters: ac. Private to "cale": el. Private to "caso": os.

"cale" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "caso" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caleacle · cael · calle · ccale · clae
  • casoacso · casso · ccaso · csao

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cale" and "caso" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cale" is a noun and "caso" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cale" or "caso"?
"caso" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #181 in our Portuguese list, against #17,719 for "cale". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cale" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "caso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,231 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cale" and "caso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cale vs cárie". 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 #53,231 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