caravscenaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: cara is a preposition, cena is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cara” is a preposition and “cena” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#195
“cara” frequency rank
#1,139
“cena” frequency rank
1334
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cara cena
Definition em direção a, para, contra palco

Letter map: cara vs cena

Shared letters muted; letters that set cara and cena apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
cara
4 ch
cena

Grammar separator: cara vs cena

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cara is apreposition and cenaanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1334, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cara is recorded at frequency rank #195, classified as aprep. cena is at rank #1,139, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈse.nɐ/.

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 1334, this pair ranks #74,250 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cara vs cena

Shared letters: ac. Private to "cara": r. Private to "cena": en.

"cara" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cena" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caraacra · caar · carra · ccara · craa
  • cenaccena · cean · cenna · cnea · ecna

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cara" for "cena" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cara" is a preposition and "cena" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cara" or "cena"?
"cara" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #195 in our Portuguese list, against #1,139 for "cena". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "cara" and "cena". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cara" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cena" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,250 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cara" and "cena" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cena 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 #74,250 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