cantovscentoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,082
“canto” frequency rank
#2,620
“cento” frequency rank
4702
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature canto cento
Definition o ato de cantar conjunto de cem unidades de alguma coisa

Letter map: canto vs cento

Shared letters muted; letters that set canto and cento apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
canto
5 ch
cento

Spelling & dictionary notes on canto vs cento

canto and cento are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by a single letter - a in “canto” becomes e in “cento”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4702, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

canto is recorded at frequency rank #2,082, classified as anoun. cento is at rank #2,620, tagged as anoun.

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 4702, this pair ranks #70,116 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of canto vs cento

Shared letters: cnot. Private to "canto": a. Private to "cento": e.

"canto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cento" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cantoacnto · cannto · canot · cantto · catno · ccanto · cnato
  • centoccento · cennto · cenot · centto · cetno · cneto · ecnto

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "canto" and "cento" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by a single letter - a in “canto” becomes e in “cento”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "canto" or "cento"?
"canto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,082 in our Portuguese list, against #2,620 for "cento". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "canto" and "cento". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "canto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cento" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #70,116 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "canto" and "cento" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cânon vs canto". 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 #70,116 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