abalovsalôWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#25,870
“abalo” frequency rank
#4,874
“alô” frequency rank
30744
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature abalo alô
Definition ato ou efeito de abalar lá, alá, podendo indicar um lugar, um tempo, mais afastado que lá

Letter map: abalo vs alô

Shared letters muted; letters that set abalo and alô apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. abalo runs 5 letters (VCVCV) against alô's 3 (VCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
abalo
3 ch
alô

Part-of-speech tell for abalo / alô

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: abalo is anoun and alôanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30744, 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/. alô is at rank #4,874, 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 30744, this pair ranks #37,526 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of abalo vs alô

Shared letters: al. Private to "abalo": bo. Private to "alô": ô.

"abalo" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "alô" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • abaloaablo · aballo · abaol · abbalo · ablao · baalo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "abalo" and "alô" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "abalo" is a noun and "alô" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "abalo" or "alô" show up more?
"alô" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,874 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

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "abalo" and "alô".

  • Full dictionary entry for "abalo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "alô" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,526 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "abalo" and "alô" 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 #37,526 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