acentovsapertoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“acento” and “aperto” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#21,347
“acento” frequency rank
#10,129
“aperto” frequency rank
31476
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acento aperto
Definition sinal gráfico que altera o som de vogais ato de apertar

Where the eye mixes acento and aperto

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. acento and aperto follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
acento
6 ch
aperto

Look-alike desk: acento vs aperto

A purely visual mix-up. acento (/ɐ.ˈsẽ.tu/) and aperto (/ɐ.ˈpeɾ.tu/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31476, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acento is recorded at frequency rank #21,347, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.ˈsẽ.tu/. aperto is at rank #10,129, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.ˈpeɾ.tu/.

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 31476, this pair ranks #36,584 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of acento vs aperto

Shared letters: aeot. Private to "acento": cn. Private to "aperto": pr.

"acento" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "aperto" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • acento ← accento · acennto · acenot · acentto · acetno · acneto · aecnto · caento
  • aperto ← aeprto · aperot · aperrto · apertto · apetro · apperto · apreto · paerto

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "acento" for "aperto" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ɐ.ˈsẽ.tu/ versus /ɐ.ˈpeɾ.tu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "acento" or "aperto" show up more?
"aperto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,129 in our Portuguese list, against #21,347 for "acento". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "acento" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aperto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #36,584 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acento" and "aperto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aceno vs acento". 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 #36,584 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