cascalhovscastanhoWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#25,586
“cascalho” frequency rank
#10,485
“castanho” frequency rank
36071
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cascalho castanho
Definition pequenas lascas de pedra uma cor como a de chocolate ou café

Letter map: cascalho vs castanho

Shared letters muted; letters that set cascalho and castanho apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. cascalho and castanho follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
cascalho
8 ch
castanho

Part-of-speech tell for cascalho / castanho

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cascalho is anoun and castanhoanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36071, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cascalho is recorded at frequency rank #25,586, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɐʃ.ˈka.ʎu/. castanho is at rank #10,485, tagged as anadj.

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 36071, this pair ranks #30,817 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cascalho vs castanho

Shared letters: achos. Private to "cascalho": l. Private to "castanho": nt.

"cascalho" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV  ·  "castanho" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cascalho ← acscalho · cacsalho · casaclho · cascahlo · cascalhho · cascallho · cascaloh · casccalho
  • castanho ← acstanho · casatnho · casstanho · castahno · castanhho · castannho · castanoh · castnaho

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cascalho" and "castanho" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cascalho" is a noun and "castanho" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cascalho" vs "castanho" - which ranks higher?
"castanho" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,485 in our Portuguese list, against #25,586 for "cascalho". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "cascalho" and "castanho".

  • Full dictionary entry for "cascalho" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "castanho" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,817 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cascalho" and "castanho" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cabeçalho vs cascalho". 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 #30,817 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