olá

/o.'la/

//o.'la// intj

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“olá” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #1,198) as an interjection. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#1,198
frequency rank, Portuguese
385
“O” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - usa-se ao encontrar alguém, como saudação

Corpus desk

Index PT-ola · olá · Portuguese

olá · rank #1,198 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #1,198
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 385
  • PHOTO-FINISH marido

Nearest frequency peer: marido (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Vizinhos de frequência do confusável “olá”

Pares de peso semelhante no corpus, aparte dos confusáveis abaixo

corpus weight

What this shows As barras situam “olá” face aos lemas portugueses mais próximos por rank, não um reprint da secretária de confusáveis.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

olá vs os
33% similar
olá vs ou
33% similar
olá vs on
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for olá
PropertyValue
Headwordolá
LanguagePortuguese
Part of speechInterjection
IPA/o.'la/
Letters3
Frequency rank#1,198
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rank de corpus junto a confusáveis de “olá”

Esta escala corre do núcleo do português quotidiano (esquerda) até o rastro de formas raras (direita).olácai aqui:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

A escala é logarítmica (cada marca ≈ 10× mais rara). Na mesma faixa de raridade aparecem “marido” (#1,197), “rosto” (#1,199), “imprensa” (#1,196). Entre 385 lemas com “O”, “olá” fica em #1,198. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for olá is neighbouring look-alikes ("os", "ou", …), not just typos; it is aninterjection pronounced /o.'la/. Frequency #1,198 among 385 “O” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

olá has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "os", "ou", "on", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct Portuguese form is olá, spelled O-L-Á.

Definition

  1. 1
    usa-se ao encontrar alguém, como saudação
  2. 2
    também pode ser dito para chamar a atenção

Synonyms

buenas

This word in other languages

hello(English)hola(Español)salut(Français)hallo(Deutsch)

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

How do you spell "olá"?
"olá" is spelled O-L-Á. The IPA pronunciation is /o.'la/.
What does "olá" mean?
As an interjection, "olá" means: usa-se ao encontrar alguém, como saudação
What words are commonly confused with "olá"?
"olá" is commonly confused with "os", "ou", "on". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "olá"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "olá" is /o.'la/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "olá" come from?
"olá" is a Portuguese word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar Portuguese words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "olá", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked Portuguese headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

one#1,219pro#1,173céu#1,163som#1,134

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list