adoraçãovsadoravaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: adoração is a noun, adorava is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“adoração” is a noun and “adorava” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,995
“adoração” frequency rank
#9,433
“adorava” frequency rank
20428
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature adoração adorava
Definition culto a Deus primeira pessoa do singular do pretérito imperfeito do indicativo do verbo adorar

Where the eye mixes adoração and adorava

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. adoração runs 8 letters (VCVCVCVV) against adorava's 7 (VCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
adoração
7 ch
adorava

Why the eye confuses adoração with adorava

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: adoração is /əˈduɾəsə̃ʊ/ while adorava is [a.do.ˈɾa.va]. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20428, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

adoração is recorded at frequency rank #10,995, classified as anoun, pronounced /əˈduɾəsə̃ʊ/. adorava is at rank #9,433, tagged as averb, pronounced [a.do.ˈɾa.va].

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 20428, this pair ranks #50,100 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of adoração vs adorava

Shared letters: ador. Private to "adoração": ãç. Private to "adorava": v.

"adoração" · 8 letters · shape VCVCVCVV  ·  "adorava" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • adorava ← addorava · adoarva · adoraav · adoravva · adorrava · adorvaa · adroava · aodrava

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "adoração" and "adorava" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "adoração" is a noun and "adorava" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "adoração" or "adorava" show up more?
"adorava" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,433 in our Portuguese list, against #10,995 for "adoração". 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 "adoração" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "adorava" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #50,100 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "adoração" and "adorava" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "adoração vs alocação". 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 #50,100 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