acervovsacesoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: acervo is a noun, aceso is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“acervo” is a noun and “aceso” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,237
“acervo” frequency rank
#23,544
“aceso” frequency rank
30781
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acervo aceso
Definition reunião ou enorme conjunto de itens, montão que se acendeu

Where the eye mixes acervo and aceso

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. acervo runs 6 letters (VCVCCV) against aceso's 5 (VCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
acervo
5 ch
aceso

Why the eye confuses acervo with aceso

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: acervo is /ɐ.ˈseɾ.vu/ while aceso is /ɐ.ˈse.zu/. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30781, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acervo is recorded at frequency rank #7,237, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.ˈseɾ.vu/. aceso is at rank #23,544, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɐ.ˈse.zu/.

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 30781, this pair ranks #37,479 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of acervo vs aceso

Shared letters: aceo. Private to "acervo": rv. Private to "aceso": s.

"acervo" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "aceso" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • acervo ← accervo · acerov · acerrvo · acervvo · acevro · acrevo · aecrvo · caervo
  • aceso ← acceso · aceos · acseo · aecso · caeso

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "acervo" for "aceso" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "acervo" is a noun and "aceso" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "acervo" or "aceso" show up more?
"acervo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,237 in our Portuguese list, against #23,544 for "aceso". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "acervo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aceso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,479 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acervo" and "aceso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aceso 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 #37,479 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