avevsavelãWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#5,708
“ave” frequency rank
#35,019
“avelã” frequency rank
40727
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ave avelã
Definition animal vertebrado, ovíparo, recoberto de penas, de bico córneo, sem dentes, e cujos membros posteriores servem para marcha, sendo os anteriores transformados em asas fruta gerada pela avelãzeira, avelaneira ou aveleira, (Corylus avellana)

Letter map: ave vs avelã

Shared letters muted; letters that set ave and avelã apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. ave runs 3 letters (VCV) against avelã's 5 (VCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
ave
5 ch
avelã

Pair insight - ave / avelã

ave and avelã 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 2 extra letter(s) - “ave” sits inside “avelã”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40727, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ave is recorded at frequency rank #5,708, classified as anoun. avelã is at rank #35,019, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.vɨ.ˈlɐ̃/.

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 40727, this pair ranks #25,333 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ave vs avelã

Shared letters: aev. Private to "ave": -. Private to "avelã": lã.

"ave" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "avelã" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ave" for "avelã" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “ave” sits inside “avelã”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "ave" or "avelã"?
"ave" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,708 in our Portuguese list, against #35,019 for "avelã". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ave" and "avelã".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ave" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "avelã" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,333 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ave" and "avelã" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ateia vs avelã". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #25,333 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