caosvschãoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#4,128
“caos” frequency rank
#1,140
“chão” frequency rank
5268
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature caos chão
Definition espaço limitado e amorfo que precedeu à criação do cosmo corda

Letter map: caos vs chão

Shared letters muted; letters that set caos and chão apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
caos
4 ch
chão

Spelling & dictionary notes on caos vs chão

caos and chão 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 share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5268, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

caos is recorded at frequency rank #4,128, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkaws/. chão is at rank #1,140, 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 5268, this pair ranks #69,386 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of caos vs chão

Shared letters: co. Private to "caos": as. Private to "chão": .

"caos" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "chão" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caosacos · caoss · ccaos · coas

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "caos" and "chão" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "caos" vs "chão" - which ranks higher?
"chão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,140 in our Portuguese list, against #4,128 for "caos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "caos" and "chão".

  • Full dictionary entry for "caos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #69,386 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "caos" and "chão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caos vs ciao". 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 #69,386 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