cargosvscertosWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: cargos is a noun, certos is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#4,049
“cargos” frequency rank
#2,359
“certos” frequency rank
6408
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cargos certos
Definition plural de cargo plural de certo

Letter map: cargos vs certos

Shared letters muted; letters that set cargos and certos apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
cargos
6 ch
certos

Role in the sentence - cargos and certos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cargos is anoun and certosanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6408, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cargos is recorded at frequency rank #4,049, classified as anoun. certos is at rank #2,359, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɛrtuʃ/.

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 6408, this pair ranks #68,034 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cargos vs certos

Shared letters: cors. Private to "cargos": ag. Private to "certos": et.

"cargos" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "certos" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cargosacrgos · cagros · carggos · cargoss · cargso · carogs · carrgos · ccargos
  • certosccertos · cerots · cerrtos · certoss · certso · certtos · cetros · cretos

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cargos" for "certos" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cargos" is a noun and "certos" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "cargos" or "certos" show up more?
"certos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,359 in our Portuguese list, against #4,049 for "cargos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "cargos" vs "certos" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cargos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "certos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,034 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cargos" and "certos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Ceres vs certos". 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 #68,034 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