AsvsAssTell them apart

Which to use

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

#22
“As” frequency rank
#15,020
“Ass” frequency rank
15042
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature As Ass
Definition forma obsoleta de Ass ás

Where the eye mixes As and Ass

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

2 ch
As
3 ch
Ass

Visual trap between As and Ass

A purely visual mix-up. As (/as/) and Ass (/as/ ouvir^(fonte ?)) 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 1 extra letter(s) - “As” sits inside “Ass”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15042, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

As is recorded at frequency rank #22, classified as anoun, pronounced /as/. Ass is at rank #15,020, tagged as anoun, pronounced /as/ ouvir^(fonte ?).

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 15042, this pair ranks #56,896 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of As vs Ass

Shared letters: as. Private to "As": -. Private to "Ass": -.

"As" · 2 letters · shape VC  ·  "Ass" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "As" and "Ass" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/as/ versus /as/ ouvir^(fonte ?)) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "As" or "Ass" show up more?
"As" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22 in our Portuguese list, against #15,020 for "Ass". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "As" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Ass" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #56,896 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "As" and "Ass" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs Ass". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #56,896 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