camevscimaWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#24,551
“came” frequency rank
#580
“cima” frequency rank
25131
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature came cima
Definition conjunto de manivelas que estão colocadas sobre um mesmo eixo, usadas para mover o seguidor a parte superior de alguma coisa; alto, cume, cimeira, topo

Where the eye mixes came and cima

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

4 ch
came
4 ch
cima

Visual trap between came and cima

A purely visual mix-up. came (/ˈkɐ.mi/) and cima (/ˈsi.mɐ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25131, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

came is recorded at frequency rank #24,551, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɐ.mi/. cima is at rank #580, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsi.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 25131, this pair ranks #44,251 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of came vs cima

Shared letters: acm. Private to "came": e. Private to "cima": i.

"came" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cima" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cameacme · caem · camme · ccame · cmae
  • cimaccima · ciam · cimma · cmia · icma

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "came" and "cima" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkɐ.mi/ versus /ˈsi.mɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "came" vs "cima" - which ranks higher?
"cima" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #580 in our Portuguese list, against #24,551 for "came". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "came" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cima" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #44,251 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "came" and "cima" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "came vs cham". 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 #44,251 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