abovsaboutWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#39,944
“abo” frequency rank
#6,361
“about” frequency rank
46305
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature abo about
Definition aborígene, nativo australiano praticamente

Letter map: abo vs about

Shared letters muted; letters that set abo and about apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
abo
5 ch
about

Grammar separator: abo vs about

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: abo is anoun and aboutanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “abo” sits inside “about”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46305, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

abo is recorded at frequency rank #39,944, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈæb.əʉ/. about is at rank #6,361, 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 46305, this pair ranks #19,033 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of abo vs about

Shared letters: abo. Private to "abo": -. Private to "about": tu.

"abo" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "about" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aboutabbout · abotu · aboutt · abuot · aobut · baout

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "abo" and "about" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "abo" is a noun and "about" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "abo" or "about"?
"about" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,361 in our Portuguese list, against #39,944 for "abo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "abo" and "about". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "abo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "about" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,033 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "abo" and "about" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "abo vs acs". 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 #19,033 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