A vs av, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“A” is an adjective and “av” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2
“A” frequency rank: #5,821
“av” frequency rank: 5823
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	A	av
Definition	assinala o primeiro elemento de uma série na qual estes são distinguidos e ordenados em uma sequência alfabética	audiovisuel ("audiovisual"):

Letter map: A vs av

Shared letters muted; letters that set A and av apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

1 ch

2 ch

Role in the sentence - A and av

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: A is anadjective and avanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “A” sits inside “av”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5823, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

A is recorded at frequency rank #2, classified as anadj, pronounced /a/. av is at rank #5,821, tagged as anabbrev.

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 5823, this pair ranks #68,721 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of A vs av

Shared letters: a. Private to "A": -. Private to "av": v.

"A" · 1 letters · shape V · "av" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "A" for "av" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "A" is an adjective and "av" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "A" vs "av" - which ranks higher?

"A" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2 in our Portuguese list, against #5,821 for "av". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "A" and "av".

Full dictionary entry for "A" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "av" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #68,721 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"A" and "av" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs av". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #68,721 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.