abovsachoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: abo is a noun, acho is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#39,944
“abo” frequency rank
#148
“acho” frequency rank
40092
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature abo acho
Definition aborígene, nativo australiano primeira pessoa do presente do indicativo de achar.

Where the eye mixes abo and acho

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
abo
4 ch
acho

Why the eye confuses abo with acho

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: abo is /ˈæb.əʉ/ while acho is /ˈa.ʃo/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40092, 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/. acho is at rank #148, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈa.ʃo/.

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 40092, this pair ranks #26,067 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of abo vs acho

Shared letters: ao. Private to "abo": b. Private to "acho": ch.

"abo" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "acho" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • achoaccho · achho · acoh · ahco · caho

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "abo" for "acho" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "abo" is a noun and "acho" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "abo" or "acho"?
"acho" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #148 in our Portuguese list, against #39,944 for "abo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "abo" and "acho" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "abo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "acho" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,067 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "abo" and "acho" 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 #26,067 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