cepavschapaTell them apart

Which to use

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

#40,036
“cepa” frequency rank
#5,920
“chapa” frequency rank
45956
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cepa chapa
Definition tronco de videira peça chata e plana de metal

Where the eye mixes cepa and chapa

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cepa runs 4 letters (CVCV) against chapa's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
cepa
5 ch
chapa

Look-alike desk: cepa vs chapa

A purely visual mix-up. cepa (/ˈse.pɐ/) and chapa (/ˈʃa.pɐ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45956, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cepa is recorded at frequency rank #40,036, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈse.pɐ/. chapa is at rank #5,920, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈʃa.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 45956, this pair ranks #19,429 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cepa vs chapa

Shared letters: acp. Private to "cepa": e. Private to "chapa": h.

"cepa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "chapa" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cepa ← ccepa · ceap · ceppa · cpea · ecpa
  • chapa ← cahpa · cchapa · chaap · chappa · chhapa · chpaa · hcapa

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cepa" and "chapa" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈse.pɐ/ versus /ˈʃa.pɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "cepa" or "chapa" show up more?
"chapa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,920 in our Portuguese list, against #40,036 for "cepa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cepa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chapa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,429 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cepa" and "chapa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cepa 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

Confusion rank #19,429 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