qu
[ɡu]
The verdict
“qu” is a regularly-used Portuguese word, ranked #6,802 in Portuguese word frequency and used as a noun.
- #6,802
- frequency rank, Portuguese
- 2
- letters
- 10
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - cisne
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 | qu |
| Language | Portuguese |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [ɡu] |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #6,802 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “qu” sits in Portuguese frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Portuguese entry for qu is 2 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ɡu]. Corpus data places it at rank #6,802 in overall Portuguese word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "cisne".
qu doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 10 confusable-pair relationships, "que", "qui", "quem", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct Portuguese form is qu, spelled Q-U.
Definition
- 1cisne
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 “qu”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Portuguese spelling is Q-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ɡu] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “que” - see the side-by-side comparison. qu vs que
- 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.