cão vs cry, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#3,065
“cão” frequency rank: #12,412
“cry” frequency rank: 15477
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	cão	cry
Definition	cruel, brutal, dominador	choro

Where the eye mixes cão and cry

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch

cão

3 ch

cry

Visual trap between cão and cry

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cão is /ˈkɐ̃ũ̯/ while cry is /kɹaɪ̯/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15477, 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/. cry is at rank #12,412, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɹaɪ̯/.

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 15477, this pair ranks #56,331 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cão vs cry

Shared letters: c. Private to "cão": oã. Private to "cry": ry.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cão" for "cry" ever safe?

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "cão" or "cry" show up more?

"cão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,065 in our Portuguese list, against #12,412 for "cry". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

Full dictionary entry for "cão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "cry" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #56,331 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"cão" and "cry" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cão vs chau". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #56,331 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.