cão vs che, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“cão” is an adjective and “che” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,065
“cão” frequency rank: #11,600
“che” frequency rank: 14665
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	cão	che
Definition	cruel, brutal, dominador	para expressar desprezo ou que se duvida da verdade do que se esta a ouvir

Letter map: cão vs che

Shared letters muted; letters that set cão and che apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

cão

3 ch

che

Part-of-speech tell for cão / che

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cão is anadjective and cheanintj. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14665, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cão is recorded at frequency rank #3,065, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈkɐ̃ũ̯/. che is at rank #11,600, tagged as anintj.

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 14665, this pair ranks #57,359 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cão vs che

Shared letters: c. Private to "cão": oã. Private to "che": eh.

"cão" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "che" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cão" and "che" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cão" is an adjective and "che" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "cão" or "che"?

"cão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,065 in our Portuguese list, against #11,600 for "che". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "cão" vs "che" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "cão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "che" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #57,359 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"cão" and "che" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "che vs chess". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #57,359 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.