Which to use
“arm” is an adjective and “army” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,355
- “arm” frequency rank
- #7,594
- “army” frequency rank
- 34949
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | arm | army |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | pobre | forças armadas |
Where the eye mixes arm and army
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses arm with army
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: arm is /aʁm/ ouvir^(fonte ?) while army is /ˈɑɹ.mi/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “arm” sits inside “army”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34949, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
arm is recorded at frequency rank #27,355, classified as anadj, pronounced /aʁm/ ouvir^(fonte ?). army is at rank #7,594, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɑɹ.mi/.
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 34949, this pair ranks #32,200 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of arm vs army
Shared letters: amr. Private to "arm": -. Private to "army": y.
"arm" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "army" · 4 letters · shape VCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- army ← amry · armmy · armyy · arrmy · arym · ramy
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "arm" and "army" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "arm" or "army" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "arm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "army" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #32,200 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "arm" and "army" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs arm". 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 #32,200 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.