contrevscountryTell them apart

Quick tell: contre is a preposition, country is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“contre” is a preposition and “country” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,771
“contre” frequency rank
#4,546
“country” frequency rank
50317
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature contre country
Definition contra, encostado em, perto de, próximo a: que tem o estilo estético associado às festas do peão, rodeio

Letter map: contre vs country

Shared letters muted; letters that set contre and country apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. contre runs 6 letters (CVCCCV) against country's 7 (CVVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
contre
7 ch
country

Part-of-speech tell for contre / country

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: contre is apreposition and countryanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50317, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

contre is recorded at frequency rank #45,771, classified as aprep, pronounced /kɔ̃tʁ/. country is at rank #4,546, tagged as anadj.

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 50317, this pair ranks #14,654 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of contre vs country

Shared letters: cnort. Private to "contre": e. Private to "country": uy.

"contre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "country" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • contre ← ccontre · cnotre · conntre · conrte · contrre · conttre · cotnre · ocntre
  • country ← ccountry · conutry · counntry · counrty · countrry · countryy · counttry · countyr

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "contre" and "country" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "contre" is a preposition and "country" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "contre" or "country"?
"country" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,546 in our Portuguese list, against #45,771 for "contre". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "contre" vs "country" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "contre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "country" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #14,654 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "contre" and "country" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coentro 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 #14,654 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