armavsarmasWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“arma” and “armas” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,913
“arma” frequency rank
#906
“armas” frequency rank
2819
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arma armas
Definition instrumento usado para ataque e defesa plural de arma

Letter map: arma vs armas

Shared letters muted; letters that set arma and armas apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch
arma
5 ch
armas

Pair insight - arma / armas

arma and armas are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “arma” sits inside “armas”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2819, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

arma is recorded at frequency rank #1,913, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈaɾmɐ/. armas is at rank #906, 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 2819, this pair ranks #72,436 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of arma vs armas

Shared letters: amr. Private to "arma": -. Private to "armas": s.

"arma" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "armas" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • armaamra · aram · armma · arrma
  • armasamras · arams · armass · armmas · armsa · arrmas · ramas

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "arma" for "armas" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “arma” sits inside “armas”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "arma" vs "armas" - which ranks higher?
"armas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #906 in our Portuguese list, against #1,913 for "arma". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "arma" vs "armas" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "arma" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "armas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,436 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arma" and "armas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "afã vs arma". 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 #72,436 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