capevscepaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#17,721
“cape” frequency rank
#40,036
“cepa” frequency rank
57757
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cape cepa
Definition cabo tronco de videira

Where the eye mixes cape and cepa

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. cape and cepa follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
cape
4 ch
cepa

Visual trap between cape and cepa

A purely visual mix-up. cape (/keɪp/, /keIp/) and cepa (/ˈse.pɐ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they are an anagram pair: the same letters reordered. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57757, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cape is recorded at frequency rank #17,721, classified as anoun, pronounced /keɪp/, /keIp/. cepa is at rank #40,036, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈse.pɐ/.

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 57757, this pair ranks #9,145 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cape vs cepa

Shared letters: acep. Private to "cape": -. Private to "cepa": -.

"cape" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cepa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cape ← acpe · caep · cappe · ccape · cpae
  • cepa ← ccepa · ceap · ceppa · cpea · ecpa

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cape" for "cepa" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/keɪp/, /keIp/ versus /ˈse.pɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cape" or "cepa"?
"cape" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,721 in our Portuguese list, against #40,036 for "cepa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cape" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cepa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #9,145 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cape" and "cepa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cepa vs cerda". 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 #9,145 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