contavscontatoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#223
“conta” frequency rank
#1,160
“contato” frequency rank
1383
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature conta contato
Definition qualquer operação de aritmética o fato de contactar

Letter map: conta vs contato

Shared letters muted; letters that set conta and contato apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

5 ch
conta
7 ch
contato

Pair insight - conta / contato

conta and contato 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) - “conta” sits inside “contato”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1383, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

conta is recorded at frequency rank #223, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkõ.tɐ/. contato is at rank #1,160, 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 1383, this pair ranks #74,196 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of conta vs contato

Shared letters: acnot. Private to "conta": -. Private to "contato": -.

"conta" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "contato" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • contacconta · cnota · conat · connta · contta · cotna · ocnta
  • contatoccontato · cnotato · conatto · conntato · contaot · contatto · conttao · conttato

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "conta" and "contato" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “conta” sits inside “contato”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "conta" vs "contato" - which ranks higher?
"conta" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #223 in our Portuguese list, against #1,160 for "contato". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "conta" vs "contato" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "conta" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "contato" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,196 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "conta" and "contato" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "conta vs contre". 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 #74,196 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