àquelavsaquiloConfusable pair

Quick tell: àquela is a contraction, aquilo is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“àquela” is a contraction and “aquilo” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,603
“àquela” frequency rank
#820
“aquilo” frequency rank
10423
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature àquela aquilo
Definition contração da preposição a com o pronome demonstrativo aquela aquela coisa ou aquele assunto

Letter map: àquela vs aquilo

Shared letters muted; letters that set àquela and aquilo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. àquela and aquilo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
àquela
6 ch
aquilo

Role in the sentence - àquela and aquilo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: àquela is acontraction and aquiloapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10423, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

àquela is recorded at frequency rank #9,603, classified as acontraction. aquilo is at rank #820, tagged as apron, pronounced /ɐ.ˈki.lu/.

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 10423, this pair ranks #62,688 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of àquela vs aquilo

Shared letters: alqu. Private to "àquela": eà. Private to "aquilo": io.

"àquela" · 6 letters · shape VCVVCV  ·  "aquilo" · 6 letters · shape VCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aquilo ← aqiulo · aqquilo · aquillo · aquiol · aqulio · auqilo · qauilo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "àquela" and "aquilo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "àquela" is a contraction and "aquilo" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "àquela" or "aquilo" show up more?
"aquilo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #820 in our Portuguese list, against #9,603 for "àquela". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "àquela" and "aquilo".

  • Full dictionary entry for "àquela" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aquilo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #62,688 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "àquela" and "aquilo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "àquela vs avelã". 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 #62,688 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