abalovsacasoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: abalo is a noun, acaso is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“abalo” is a noun and “acaso” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,870
“abalo” frequency rank
#2,759
“acaso” frequency rank
28629
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature abalo acaso
Definition ato ou efeito de abalar casualmente

Letter map: abalo vs acaso

Shared letters muted; letters that set abalo and acaso apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. abalo and acaso follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
abalo
5 ch
acaso

Grammar separator: abalo vs acaso

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: abalo is anoun and acasoanadverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28629, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

abalo is recorded at frequency rank #25,870, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.ˈba.lu/. acaso is at rank #2,759, tagged as anadv.

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 28629, this pair ranks #40,177 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of abalo vs acaso

Shared letters: ao. Private to "abalo": bl. Private to "acaso": cs.

"abalo" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "acaso" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • abalo ← aablo · aballo · abaol · abbalo · ablao · baalo
  • acaso ← aacso · acaos · acasso · accaso · acsao · caaso

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "abalo" and "acaso" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "abalo" is a noun and "acaso" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "abalo" or "acaso" show up more?
"acaso" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,759 in our Portuguese list, against #25,870 for "abalo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "abalo" and "acaso". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "abalo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "acaso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #40,177 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "abalo" and "acaso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "abalo vs alado". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #40,177 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list