aovsavWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ao is a contraction, av is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ao” is a contraction and “av” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27
“ao” frequency rank
#5,821
“av” frequency rank
5848
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ao av
Definition contração da preposição a com o artigo definido o audiovisuel ("audiovisual"):

Letter map: ao vs av

Shared letters muted; letters that set ao and av apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch
ao
2 ch
av

Role in the sentence - ao and av

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ao is acontraction and avanabbrev. On the page they differ by a single letter - o in “ao” becomes v in “av”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5848, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ao is recorded at frequency rank #27, classified as acontraction, pronounced /aw/. av is at rank #5,821, tagged as anabbrev.

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 5848, this pair ranks #68,698 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ao vs av

Shared letters: a. Private to "ao": o. Private to "av": v.

"ao" · 2 letters · shape VV  ·  "av" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ao" and "av" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ao" is a contraction and "av" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ao" vs "av" - which ranks higher?
"ao" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27 in our Portuguese list, against #5,821 for "av". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "ao" and "av". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ao" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "av" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,698 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ao" and "av" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs av". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #68,698 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