aldavsaldeiaWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#30,810
“alda” frequency rank
#2,300
“aldeia” frequency rank
33110
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alda aldeia
Definition vaga, onda marinha pequena povoação rústica sem jurisdição própria

Where the eye mixes alda and aldeia

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. alda runs 4 letters (VCCV) against aldeia's 6 (VCCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
alda
6 ch
aldeia

Why the eye confuses alda with aldeia

A purely visual mix-up. alda (/ˈal.da/) and aldeia (/aɫ.ˈdɐj.ɐ/) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33110, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alda is recorded at frequency rank #30,810, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈal.da/. aldeia is at rank #2,300, tagged as anoun, pronounced /aɫ.ˈdɐj.ɐ/.

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 33110, this pair ranks #34,503 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of alda vs aldeia

Shared letters: adl. Private to "alda": -. Private to "aldeia": ei.

"alda" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "aldeia" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • alda ← adla · alad · aldda · allda · lada
  • aldeia ← adleia · alddeia · aldeai · aldiea · aledia · alldeia · ladeia

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "alda" for "aldeia" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈal.da/ versus /aɫ.ˈdɐj.ɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "alda" or "aldeia"?
"aldeia" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,300 in our Portuguese list, against #30,810 for "alda". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "alda" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aldeia" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #34,503 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alda" and "aldeia" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alda vs audaz". 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 #34,503 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