castanhavscastanhoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#15,275
“castanha” frequency rank
#10,485
“castanho” frequency rank
25760
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature castanha castanho
Definition fruta proveniente da castanheira, e de outras árvores uma cor como a de chocolate ou café

Letter map: castanha vs castanho

Shared letters muted; letters that set castanha and castanho apart highlighted. Shared run: 7. castanha 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
castanha
8 ch
castanho

Role in the sentence - castanha and castanho

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: castanha is anoun and castanhoanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “castanha” becomes o in “castanho”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25760, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

castanha is recorded at frequency rank #15,275, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɐʃ.ˈtɐ.ɲɐ/. 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 25760, this pair ranks #43,492 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of castanha vs castanho

Shared letters: achnst. Private to "castanha": -. Private to "castanho": o.

"castanha" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV  ·  "castanho" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • castanha ← acstanha · casatnha · casstanha · castahna · castanah · castanhha · castannha · castnaha
  • castanho ← acstanho · casatnho · casstanho · castahno · castanhho · castannho · castanoh · castnaho

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "castanha" and "castanho" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "castanha" is a noun and "castanho" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "castanha" or "castanho" show up more?
"castanho" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,485 in our Portuguese list, against #15,275 for "castanha". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "castanha" and "castanho". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "castanha" 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 #43,492 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "castanha" and "castanho" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cascalho vs castanho". 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 #43,492 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