ciaovsciganoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#47,244
“ciao” frequency rank
#20,529
“cigano” frequency rank
67773
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ciao cigano
Definition olá povo tradicionalmente nômade, originário do norte da Índia e que hoje vive espalhado pelo mundo, especialmente na Europa

Letter map: ciao vs cigano

Shared letters muted; letters that set ciao and cigano apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. ciao runs 4 letters (CVVV) against cigano's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
ciao
6 ch
cigano

Part-of-speech tell for ciao / cigano

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ciao is anintj and ciganoanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67773, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ciao is recorded at frequency rank #47,244, classified as anintj, pronounced [ˈtʃaː.o], /ˈtʃao/. cigano is at rank #20,529, tagged as anoun.

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 67773, this pair ranks #4,505 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ciao vs cigano

Shared letters: acio. Private to "ciao": -. Private to "cigano": gn.

"ciao" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "cigano" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ciao ← caio · cciao · cioa · icao
  • cigano ← ccigano · cgiano · ciagno · ciganno · cigaon · ciggano · cignao · icgano

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ciao" and "cigano" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ciao" is an intj and "cigano" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ciao" or "cigano" show up more?
"cigano" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,529 in our Portuguese list, against #47,244 for "ciao". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ciao" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cigano" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #4,505 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ciao" and "cigano" 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 #4,505 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