adovsaradoWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#31,628
“ado” frequency rank
#39,977
“arado” frequency rank
71605
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ado arado
Definition a fazer diz-se do solo que foi lavrado

Letter map: ado vs arado

Shared letters muted; letters that set ado and arado apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
ado
5 ch
arado

Part-of-speech tell for ado / arado

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ado is anoun and aradoanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “ado” sits inside “arado”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71605, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ado is recorded at frequency rank #31,628, classified as anoun. arado is at rank #39,977, tagged as anadj, pronounced /aˈɾa.du/.

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 71605, this pair ranks #3,291 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ado vs arado

Shared letters: ado. Private to "ado": -. Private to "arado": r.

"ado" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "arado" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aradoaardo · araddo · araod · ardao · arrado · raado

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ado" and "arado" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ado" is a noun and "arado" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ado" or "arado"?
"ado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,628 in our Portuguese list, against #39,977 for "arado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ado" and "arado".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "arado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #3,291 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ado" and "arado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alado vs arado". 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 #3,291 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