ágilvsargilaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ágil is a adjective, argila is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#17,177
“ágil” frequency rank
#13,882
“argila” frequency rank
31059
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ágil argila
Definition ligeiro, pronto, veloz material criado a partir do barro, usado para a confecção de utensílios e objetos de decoração

Letter map: ágil vs argila

Shared letters muted; letters that set ágil and argila apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. ágil runs 4 letters (VCVC) against argila's 6 (VCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
ágil
6 ch
argila

Role in the sentence - ágil and argila

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ágil is anadjective and argilaanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31059, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ágil is recorded at frequency rank #17,177, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈa.ʒiɫ/. argila is at rank #13,882, tagged as anoun.

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 31059, this pair ranks #37,154 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ágil vs argila

Shared letters: gil. Private to "ágil": á. Private to "argila": ar.

"ágil" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "argila" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • argila ← agrila · arggila · argial · argilla · arglia · arigla · arrgila · ragila

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ágil" for "argila" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ágil" is an adjective and "argila" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ágil" vs "argila" - which ranks higher?
"argila" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,882 in our Portuguese list, against #17,177 for "ágil". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ágil" and "argila".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ágil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "argila" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,154 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ágil" and "argila" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acid vs ágil". 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 #37,154 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