casavscelaWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#91
“casa” frequency rank
#7,875
“cela” frequency rank
7966
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature casa cela
Definition construção que serve de moradia aposento de prisioneiros

Where the eye mixes casa and cela

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
casa
4 ch
cela

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. casa (/ˈka.zɐ/) and cela (/ˈsɛ.la/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7966, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

casa is recorded at frequency rank #91, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈka.zɐ/. cela is at rank #7,875, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɛ.la/.

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 7966, this pair ranks #65,990 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of casa vs cela

Shared letters: ac. Private to "casa": s. Private to "cela": el.

"casa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cela" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • casaacsa · caas · cassa · ccasa · csaa
  • celaccela · ceal · cella · clea · ecla

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "casa" and "cela" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈka.zɐ/ versus /ˈsɛ.la/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "casa" or "cela"?
"casa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #91 in our Portuguese list, against #7,875 for "cela". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "casa" and "cela". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "casa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cela" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #65,990 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "casa" and "cela" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cela 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list