rio

/ʁi.u/ [ʁiu̯]

//ʁi.u/ [ʁiu̯]/ noun

The verdict

“rio” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #173) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#173
frequency rank, Portuguese
963
“R” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - curso por onde passa água doce continuamente (ou durante épocas específicas do ano)

Corpus desk

Index PT-rio · rio · Portuguese

rio · rank #173 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #173
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 963
  • PHOTO-FINISH pouco

Nearest frequency peer: pouco (-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 “rio”

Pares de peso semelhante no corpus, aparte dos confusáveis abaixo

corpus weight

What this shows As barras situam “rio” 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).

rio vs rua
33% similar
rio vs run
33% similar
rio vs rue
33% similar

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

Key facts for rio
PropertyValue
Headwordrio
LanguagePortuguese
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ʁi.u/ [ʁiu̯]
Letters3
Frequency rank#173
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rank de corpus junto a confusáveis de “rio”

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

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

A escala é logarítmica (cada marca ≈ 10× mais rara). Na mesma faixa de raridade aparecem “pouco” (#172), “segundo” (#174), “mãe” (#170). Entre 963 lemas com “R”, “rio” fica em #173. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for rio is neighbouring look-alikes ("rua", "run", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /ʁi.u/ [ʁiu̯]. Frequency #173 among 963 “R” headwords. Gloss: "curso por onde passa água doce continuamente (ou durante épocas específicas do ano)".

rio has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "rua", "run", "rue", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct Portuguese form is rio, spelled R-I-O.

Definition

  1. 1
    curso por onde passa água doce continuamente (ou durante épocas específicas do ano)

This word in other languages

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 "rio"?
"rio" is spelled R-I-O. The IPA pronunciation is /ʁi.u/ [ʁiu̯].
What does "rio" mean?
As a noun, "rio" means: curso por onde passa água doce continuamente (ou durante épocas específicas do ano)
What words are commonly confused with "rio"?
"rio" is commonly confused with "rua", "run", "rue". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "rio"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "rio" is /ʁi.u/ [ʁiu̯]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "rio" come from?
"rio" 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 "rio", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

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

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list