armavsarmyTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,913
“arma” frequency rank
#7,594
“army” frequency rank
9507
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arma army
Definition instrumento usado para ataque e defesa forças armadas

Where the eye mixes arma and army

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
arma
4 ch
army

Why the eye confuses arma with army

A purely visual mix-up. arma (/ˈaɾmɐ/) and army (/ˈɑɹ.mi/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - a in “arma” becomes y in “army”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9507, 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/. 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 9507, this pair ranks #63,894 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of arma vs army

Shared letters: amr. Private to "arma": -. Private to "army": y.

"arma" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "army" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • armaamra · aram · armma · arrma
  • armyamry · armmy · armyy · arrmy · arym · ramy

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "arma" and "army" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈaɾmɐ/ versus /ˈɑɹ.mi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "arma" or "army" show up more?
"arma" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,913 in our Portuguese list, against #7,594 for "army". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "arma" 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 #63,894 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arma" and "army" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arar vs army". 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 #63,894 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