cascovscaspaWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#14,093
“casco” frequency rank
#42,827
“caspa” frequency rank
56920
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature casco caspa
Definition invólucro do crânio doença cutânea caracterizada pela escamação excessiva de pele morta no couro cabeludo

Where the eye mixes casco and caspa

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
casco
5 ch
caspa

Visual trap between casco and caspa

A purely visual mix-up. casco (/ˈkaʃ.ku/) and caspa (/ˈkas.pɐ/) 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 56920, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

casco is recorded at frequency rank #14,093, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkaʃ.ku/. caspa is at rank #42,827, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkas.pɐ/.

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 56920, this pair ranks #9,650 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of casco vs caspa

Shared letters: acs. Private to "casco": o. Private to "caspa": p.

"casco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "caspa" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cascoacsco · cacso · cascco · casoc · cassco · ccasco · csaco
  • caspaacspa · capsa · casap · casppa · casspa · ccaspa · csapa

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "casco" and "caspa" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkaʃ.ku/ versus /ˈkas.pɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "casco" vs "caspa" - which ranks higher?
"casco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,093 in our Portuguese list, against #42,827 for "caspa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "casco" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "caspa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #9,650 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "casco" and "caspa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "canja vs caspa". 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 #9,650 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