amigovsamoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“amigo” and “amo” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#35,806
“amigo” frequency rank
#37,649
“amo” frequency rank
73455
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature amigo amo
Definition Ami, camarade. Langue kainji parlée au Nigeria.

Where the eye mixes amigo and amo

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

5 ch
amigo
3 ch
amo

Why the eye confuses amigo with amo

A purely visual mix-up. amigo (\a.mi.ɡo\) and amo (\a.mo\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73455, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

amigo is recorded at frequency rank #35,806, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.mi.ɡo\. amo is at rank #37,649, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.mo\.

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 73455, this pair ranks #40,413 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of amigo vs amo

Shared letters: amo. Private to "amigo": gi. Private to "amo": -.

"amigo" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "amo" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • amigoaimgo · amgio · amiggo · amiog · ammigo · maigo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "amigo" and "amo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\a.mi.ɡo\ versus \a.mo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "amigo" vs "amo" - which ranks higher?
"amigo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,806 in our French list, against #37,649 for "amo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "amigo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "amo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #40,413 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "amigo" and "amo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "amo vs aur". 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 #40,413 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list