achavsaçoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#547
“acha” frequency rank
#4,209
“aço” frequency rank
4756
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acha aço
Definition cavaca liga composta principalmente de ferro e carbono utilizada para a fabricação de utensílios, armas, veículos e uma infinidade de outros objetos da vida moderna

Where the eye mixes acha and aço

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

4 ch
acha
3 ch
aço

Why the eye confuses acha with aço

A purely visual mix-up. acha (/ˈa.ʃɐ/) and aço (/ˈa.su/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4756, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acha is recorded at frequency rank #547, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈa.ʃɐ/. aço is at rank #4,209, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈa.su/.

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 4756, this pair ranks #70,040 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of acha vs aço

Shared letters: a. Private to "acha": ch. Private to "aço": .

"acha" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "aço" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • achaacah · accha · achha · ahca · caha

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "acha" for "aço" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈa.ʃɐ/ versus /ˈa.su/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "acha" or "aço" show up more?
"acha" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #547 in our Portuguese list, against #4,209 for "aço". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "acha" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aço" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #70,040 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acha" and "aço" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aço 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 #70,040 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