ceravscervoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#10,145
“cera” frequency rank
#29,629
“cervo” frequency rank
39774
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cera cervo
Definition substância que constitui os favos das abelhas mamífero ruminante da família dos cervídeos, com chifres ramificados, que vive em rebanhos

Where the eye mixes cera and cervo

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

4 ch
cera
5 ch
cervo

Visual trap between cera and cervo

A purely visual mix-up. cera (/ˈse.ɾɐ/) and cervo (/ˈsɛɾ.vu/) 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 39774, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cera is recorded at frequency rank #10,145, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈse.ɾɐ/. cervo is at rank #29,629, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɛɾ.vu/.

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 39774, this pair ranks #26,428 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cera vs cervo

Shared letters: cer. Private to "cera": a. Private to "cervo": ov.

"cera" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cervo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cera ← ccera · cear · cerra · crea · ecra
  • cervo ← ccervo · cerov · cerrvo · cervvo · cevro · crevo · ecrvo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cera" for "cervo" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈse.ɾɐ/ versus /ˈsɛɾ.vu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "cera" or "cervo" show up more?
"cera" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,145 in our Portuguese list, against #29,629 for "cervo". 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 "cera" and "cervo" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cera" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cervo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,428 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cera" and "cervo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cerda vs cervo". 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 #26,428 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