areiavsargilaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: areia is a adjective, argila is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“areia” is an adjective and “argila” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,988
“areia” frequency rank
#13,882
“argila” frequency rank
16870
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature areia argila
Definition que tem cor de areia material criado a partir do barro, usado para a confecção de utensílios e objetos de decoração

Letter map: areia vs argila

Shared letters muted; letters that set areia and argila apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. areia runs 5 letters (VCVVV) against argila's 6 (VCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
areia
6 ch
argila

Role in the sentence - areia and argila

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: areia is anadjective and argilaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16870, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

areia is recorded at frequency rank #2,988, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɐ.ˈɾɐj.ɐ/. argila is at rank #13,882, tagged as anoun.

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 16870, this pair ranks #54,563 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of areia vs argila

Shared letters: air. Private to "areia": e. Private to "argila": gl.

"areia" · 5 letters · shape VCVVV  ·  "argila" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • areia ← aeria · areai · ariea · arreia · raeia
  • argila ← agrila · arggila · argial · argilla · arglia · arigla · arrgila · ragila

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "areia" for "argila" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "areia" is an adjective and "argila" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "areia" or "argila" show up more?
"areia" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,988 in our Portuguese list, against #13,882 for "argila". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "areia" and "argila". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "areia" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "argila" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,563 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "areia" and "argila" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "argila vs arriba". 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 #54,563 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