animavsanimarTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#14,516
“anima” frequency rank
#10,646
“animar” frequency rank
25162
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature anima animar
Definition alma dar animação a

Letter map: anima vs animar

Shared letters muted; letters that set anima and animar apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

5 ch
anima
6 ch
animar

Part-of-speech tell for anima / animar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: anima is anoun and animaraverb. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “anima” sits inside “animar”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25162, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

anima is recorded at frequency rank #14,516, classified as anoun. animar is at rank #10,646, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɐ.ni.ˈmaɾ/.

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 25162, this pair ranks #44,220 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of anima vs animar

Shared letters: aimn. Private to "anima": -. Private to "animar": r.

"anima" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "animar" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • animaainma · aniam · animma · anmia · annima · naima
  • animarainmar · aniamr · animarr · animmar · animra · anmiar · annimar · naimar

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "anima" and "animar" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "anima" is a noun and "animar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "anima" or "animar"?
"animar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,646 in our Portuguese list, against #14,516 for "anima". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "anima" and "animar".

  • Full dictionary entry for "anima" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "animar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #44,220 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "anima" and "animar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "anima vs anis". 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 #44,220 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