capitalvscapítuloWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: capital is a adjective, capítulo is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#579
“capital” frequency rank
#2,993
“capítulo” frequency rank
3572
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature capital capítulo
Definition relativo à cabeça parte constituinte de uma obra escrita

Letter map: capital vs capítulo

Shared letters muted; letters that set capital and capítulo apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. capital runs 7 letters (CVCVCVC) against capítulo's 8 (CVCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
capital
8 ch
capítulo

Part-of-speech tell for capital / capítulo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: capital is anadjective and capítuloanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3572, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

capital is recorded at frequency rank #579, classified as anadj. capítulo is at rank #2,993, 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 3572, this pair ranks #71,548 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of capital vs capítulo

Shared letters: aclpt. Private to "capital": i. Private to "capítulo": ouí.

"capital" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "capítulo" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • capital ← acpital · caiptal · capiatl · capitall · capitla · capittal · cappital · captial

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "capital" for "capítulo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "capital" is an adjective and "capítulo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "capital" or "capítulo" show up more?
"capital" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #579 in our Portuguese list, against #2,993 for "capítulo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "capital" and "capítulo".

  • Full dictionary entry for "capital" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "capítulo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #71,548 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "capital" and "capítulo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "capeta vs capital". 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 #71,548 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