cancrovscentroWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#9,147
“cancro” frequency rank
#308
“centro” frequency rank
9455
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cancro centro
Definition tumor maligno local com maior movimento numa cidade, onde alguma ação se exerce com mais intensidade

Where the eye mixes cancro and centro

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
cancro
6 ch
centro

Why the eye confuses cancro with centro

A purely visual mix-up. cancro (/ˈkɜ̃kru/) and centro (/ˈsẽ.tɾu/) 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 9455, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cancro is recorded at frequency rank #9,147, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɜ̃kru/. centro is at rank #308, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsẽ.tɾu/.

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 9455, this pair ranks #63,972 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cancro vs centro

Shared letters: cnor. Private to "cancro": a. Private to "centro": et.

"cancro" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "centro" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cancroacncro · cacnro · canccro · cancor · cancrro · canncro · canrco · ccancro
  • centroccentro · cenntro · cenrto · centor · centrro · centtro · cetnro · cnetro

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cancro" for "centro" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkɜ̃kru/ versus /ˈsẽ.tɾu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cancro" vs "centro" - which ranks higher?
"centro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #308 in our Portuguese list, against #9,147 for "cancro". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "cancro" and "centro" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cancro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "centro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,972 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cancro" and "centro" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cancro 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 #63,972 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