calhavscamaTell them apart

Which to use

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

#30,453
“calha” frequency rank
#982
“cama” frequency rank
31435
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature calha cama
Definition amarelinha móvel, normalmente plano e macio, usado para dormir

Where the eye mixes calha and cama

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
calha
4 ch
cama

Look-alike desk: calha vs cama

A purely visual mix-up. calha (/ˈka.ʎɐ/) and cama (/ˈkɐ.mɐ/) 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 31435, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

calha is recorded at frequency rank #30,453, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈka.ʎɐ/. cama is at rank #982, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɐ.mɐ/.

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 31435, this pair ranks #36,643 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of calha vs cama

Shared letters: ac. Private to "calha": hl. Private to "cama": m.

"calha" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cama" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • calhaaclha · cahla · calah · calhha · callha · ccalha · claha
  • camaacma · caam · camma · ccama · cmaa

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "calha" for "cama" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈka.ʎɐ/ versus /ˈkɐ.mɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "calha" or "cama" show up more?
"cama" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #982 in our Portuguese list, against #30,453 for "calha". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "calha" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cama" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #36,643 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "calha" and "cama" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "calha vs canja". 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 #36,643 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