ABC
/aˌbeˈse/
The verdict
“ABC” is a regularly-used Portuguese word, ranked #5,156 in Portuguese word frequency and used as an abbreviation.
- #5,156
- frequency rank, Portuguese
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - região compreendida no estado brasileiro de São Paulo pelas cidades de Santo André (o "A"), São Bernardo do Campo (o "B") e São Caetano do Sul (o "C"), de grande industrialização e importância econ...
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ABC |
| Language | Portuguese |
| Part of speech | Abbreviation |
| IPA | /aˌbeˈse/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #5,156 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ABC” sits in Portuguese frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Portuguese entry for ABC is 3 letters long, classified as an abbreviation, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /aˌbeˈse/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,156 in overall Portuguese word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "região compreendida no estado brasileiro de São Paulo pelas cidades de Santo André (o "A"), São Bernardo do Campo (o "B") e São Caetano do Sul (o "C"), de grande industrialização e importância econ...".
No misspelling variants are generated for ABC in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "As", "ao", "ar", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct Portuguese form is ABC, spelled A-B-C.
Definition
- 1região compreendida no estado brasileiro de São Paulo pelas cidades de Santo André (o "A"), São Bernardo do Campo (o "B") e São Caetano do Sul (o "C"), de grande industrialização e importância econômica, social e política no país
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 Portuguese corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “ABC”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Portuguese spelling is A-B-C - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /aˌbeˈse/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “As” - see the side-by-side comparison. ABC vs As
- Browse more Portuguese words and confusable pairs in the same reference. Portuguese words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.