chãovsciaoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: chão is a noun, ciao is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“chão” is a noun and “ciao” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,140
“chão” frequency rank
#47,244
“ciao” frequency rank
48384
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chão ciao
Definition corda olá

Letter map: chão vs ciao

Shared letters muted; letters that set chão and ciao apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. chão (CCVV) and ciao (CVVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
chão
4 ch
ciao

Part-of-speech tell for chão / ciao

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: chão is anoun and ciaoanintj. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48384, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chão is recorded at frequency rank #1,140, classified as anoun. ciao is at rank #47,244, tagged as anintj, pronounced [ˈtʃaː.o], /ˈtʃao/.

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 48384, this pair ranks #16,794 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of chão vs ciao

Shared letters: co. Private to "chão": hã. Private to "ciao": ai.

"chão" · 4 letters · shape CCVV  ·  "ciao" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ciao ← caio · cciao · cioa · icao

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "chão" for "ciao" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "chão" is a noun and "ciao" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "chão" vs "ciao" - which ranks higher?
"chão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,140 in our Portuguese list, against #47,244 for "ciao". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "chão" vs "ciao" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ciao" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,794 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chão" and "ciao" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chau vs ciao". 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 #16,794 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