ágilvsavalWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#17,177
“ágil” frequency rank
#16,685
“aval” frequency rank
33862
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ágil aval
Definition ligeiro, pronto, veloz garantia de pagamento de um determinado título de crédito

Where the eye mixes ágil and aval

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. ágil and aval follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
ágil
4 ch
aval

Look-alike desk: ágil vs aval

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ágil is /ˈa.ʒiɫ/ while aval is /ɐ.ˈvaɫ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33862, 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/. aval is at rank #16,685, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.ˈvaɫ/.

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 33862, this pair ranks #33,545 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ágil vs aval

Shared letters: l. Private to "ágil": giá. Private to "aval": av.

"ágil" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "aval" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aval ← aavl · avall · avval

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ágil" for "aval" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ágil" is an adjective and "aval" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ágil" vs "aval" - which ranks higher?
"aval" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,685 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

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ágil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aval" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #33,545 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ágil" and "aval" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "atar vs aval". 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 #33,545 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