achavsaldaTell them apart

Which to use

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

#547
“acha” frequency rank
#30,810
“alda” frequency rank
31357
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acha alda
Definition cavaca vaga, onda marinha

Where the eye mixes acha and alda

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

4 ch
acha
4 ch
alda

Why the eye confuses acha with alda

A purely visual mix-up. acha (/ˈa.ʃɐ/) and alda (/ˈal.da/) 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 31357, 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/. alda is at rank #30,810, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈal.da/.

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 31357, this pair ranks #36,762 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of acha vs alda

Shared letters: a. Private to "acha": ch. Private to "alda": dl.

"acha" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "alda" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • achaacah · accha · achha · ahca · caha
  • aldaadla · alad · aldda · allda · lada

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "acha" for "alda" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈa.ʃɐ/ versus /ˈal.da/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "acha" or "alda"?
"acha" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #547 in our Portuguese list, against #30,810 for "alda". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "acha" and "alda" 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 "alda" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #36,762 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acha" and "alda" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alda vs audaz". 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 #36,762 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