condadovscordãoConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#8,591
“condado” frequency rank
#11,038
“cordão” frequency rank
19629
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature condado cordão
Definition dignidade de conde corda fina e flexível

Where the eye mixes condado and cordão

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. condado runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against cordão's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
condado
6 ch
cordão

Visual trap between condado and cordão

A purely visual mix-up. condado (/kõ.ˈda.du/) and cordão (/kuɾ.ˈdɐ̃w̃/) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19629, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

condado is recorded at frequency rank #8,591, classified as anoun, pronounced /kõ.ˈda.du/. cordão is at rank #11,038, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kuɾ.ˈdɐ̃w̃/.

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 19629, this pair ranks #51,066 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of condado vs cordão

Shared letters: cdo. Private to "condado": an. Private to "cordão": rã.

"condado" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "cordão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • condado ← ccondado · cnodado · codnado · conaddo · condaddo · condaod · conddado · conddao

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "condado" and "cordão" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/kõ.ˈda.du/ versus /kuɾ.ˈdɐ̃w̃/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "condado" or "cordão" show up more?
"condado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,591 in our Portuguese list, against #11,038 for "cordão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "condado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cordão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #51,066 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "condado" and "cordão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cerda vs cordão". 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 #51,066 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