alivsalôWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#593
“ali” frequency rank
#4,874
“alô” frequency rank
5467
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ali alô
Definition naquele lugar lá, alá, podendo indicar um lugar, um tempo, mais afastado que lá

Letter map: ali vs alô

Shared letters muted; letters that set ali and alô apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
ali
3 ch
alô

Corpus notes: ali and alô

ali and alô are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by a single letter - i in “ali” becomes ô in “alô”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5467, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ali is recorded at frequency rank #593, classified as anadv, pronounced /ɐ.ˈli/. alô is at rank #4,874, tagged as anadv.

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 5467, this pair ranks #69,151 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ali vs alô

Shared letters: al. Private to "ali": i. Private to "alô": ô.

"ali" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "alô" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ali" and "alô" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by a single letter - i in “ali” becomes ô in “alô”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ali" or "alô" show up more?
"ali" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #593 in our Portuguese list, against #4,874 for "alô". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "ali" and "alô". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ali" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "alô" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #69,151 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ali" and "alô" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs alô". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #69,151 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