apovsautoWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#45,685
“apo” frequency rank
#1,421
“auto” frequency rank
47106
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature apo auto
Definition atar, juntar, ligar. solenidade; ação pública

Where the eye mixes apo and auto

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
apo
4 ch
auto

Look-alike desk: apo vs auto

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: apo is /ˈa.poː/. while auto is /ˈaw.tu/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47106, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

apo is recorded at frequency rank #45,685, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈa.poː/.. auto is at rank #1,421, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈaw.tu/.

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 47106, this pair ranks #18,175 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of apo vs auto

Shared letters: ao. Private to "apo": p. Private to "auto": tu.

"apo" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "auto" · 4 letters · shape VVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • autoatuo · auot · autto · uato

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "apo" and "auto" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "apo" is a verb and "auto" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "apo" or "auto" show up more?
"auto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,421 in our Portuguese list, against #45,685 for "apo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "apo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "auto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,175 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "apo" and "auto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs apo". 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 #18,175 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