achevsacsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#9,947
“ache” frequency rank
#49,775
“acs” frequency rank
59722
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ache acs
Definition dor, axe olho (órgão da visão)

Where the eye mixes ache and acs

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

4 ch
ache
3 ch
acs

Why the eye confuses ache with acs

A purely visual mix-up. ache (/eɪk/) and acs ([ats]) 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 59722, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ache is recorded at frequency rank #9,947, classified as anoun, pronounced /eɪk/. acs is at rank #49,775, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ats].

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 59722, this pair ranks #8,045 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ache vs acs

Shared letters: ac. Private to "ache": eh. Private to "acs": s.

"ache" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "acs" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • acheacche · aceh · achhe · ahce · cahe

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ache" and "acs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/eɪk/ versus [ats]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "ache" vs "acs" - which ranks higher?
"ache" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,947 in our Portuguese list, against #49,775 for "acs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ache" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "acs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,045 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ache" and "acs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs ASC". 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 #8,045 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