arraiavsatrairWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: arraia is a noun, atrair is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“arraia” is a noun and “atrair” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,277
“arraia” frequency rank
#4,205
“atrair” frequency rank
47482
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arraia atrair
Definition o mesmo que raia (peixe) puxar para usando de charme, persuasão, etc

Where the eye mixes arraia and atrair

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
arraia
6 ch
atrair

Look-alike desk: arraia vs atrair

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: arraia is /ɐ.ˈRaj.ɐ/ while atrair is /ɐ.tɾɐ.ˈiɾ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47482, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

arraia is recorded at frequency rank #43,277, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.ˈRaj.ɐ/. atrair is at rank #4,205, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɐ.tɾɐ.ˈiɾ/.

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 47482, this pair ranks #17,762 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of arraia vs atrair

Shared letters: air. Private to "arraia": -. Private to "atrair": t.

"arraia" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV  ·  "atrair" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • arraiaaraia · araria · arraai · arriaa · raraia
  • atrairartair · atarir · atrairr · atrari · atriar · atrrair · attrair · tarair

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "arraia" for "atrair" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "arraia" is a noun and "atrair" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "arraia" or "atrair" show up more?
"atrair" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,205 in our Portuguese list, against #43,277 for "arraia". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "arraia" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "atrair" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,762 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arraia" and "atrair" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arraia 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 #17,762 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