carnevscerneWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#1,700
“carne” frequency rank
#22,249
“cerne” frequency rank
23949
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature carne cerne
Definition tecido muscular do homem e dos animais parte central do tronco das árvores, que tem funções estruturais

Letter map: carne vs cerne

Shared letters muted; letters that set carne and cerne apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
carne
5 ch
cerne

Corpus notes: carne and cerne

carne and cerne 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 differ by a single letter - a in “carne” becomes e in “cerne”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23949, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

carne is recorded at frequency rank #1,700, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkaɾ.nɨ/. cerne is at rank #22,249, 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 23949, this pair ranks #45,778 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of carne vs cerne

Shared letters: cenr. Private to "carne": a. Private to "cerne": -.

"carne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cerne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • carneacrne · canre · caren · carnne · carrne · ccarne · crane
  • cerneccerne · cenre · ceren · cernne · cerrne · crene · ecrne

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "carne" and "cerne" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by a single letter - a in “carne” becomes e in “cerne”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "carne" or "cerne" show up more?
"carne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,700 in our Portuguese list, against #22,249 for "cerne". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "carne" vs "cerne" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "carne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cerne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,778 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "carne" and "cerne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cerda vs cerne". 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 #45,778 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