cashvscatsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#15,755
“cash” frequency rank
#31,281
“cats” frequency rank
47036
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cash cats
Definition dinheiro em espécie (notas, moedas) plural de cat

Where the eye mixes cash and cats

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cash and cats follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
cash
4 ch
cats

Look-alike desk: cash vs cats

A purely visual mix-up. cash (/kæʃ/) and cats (/kæts/) 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 47036, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cash is recorded at frequency rank #15,755, classified as anoun, pronounced /kæʃ/. cats is at rank #31,281, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kæts/.

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 47036, this pair ranks #18,252 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cash vs cats

Shared letters: acs. Private to "cash": h. Private to "cats": t.

"cash" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "cats" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cash ← acsh · cahs · cashh · cassh · ccash · csah
  • cats ← acts · catss · catts · ccats · ctas

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cash" for "cats" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/kæʃ/ versus /kæts/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cash" or "cats"?
"cash" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,755 in our Portuguese list, against #31,281 for "cats". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "cash" and "cats" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cash" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cats" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,252 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cash" and "cats" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cactus vs cats". 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 #18,252 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