cucovscujoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cuco is a adjective, cujo is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cuco” is an adjective and “cujo” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,486
“cuco” frequency rank
#1,638
“cujo” frequency rank
32124
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cuco cujo
Definition que tira partido de algo ou de uma pessoa, que é aproveitado, egoísta relaciona dois substantivos, um antecedente e outro consequente, sendo este último possuidor de algo (qualidade, condição, sentimento, ser etc.) designado pelo primeiro; equivale a de que, de quem, do/da qual, dos/das quais

Letter map: cuco vs cujo

Shared letters muted; letters that set cuco and cujo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
cuco
4 ch
cujo

Grammar separator: cuco vs cujo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cuco is anadjective and cujoapronoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - c in “cuco” becomes j in “cujo”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32124, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cuco is recorded at frequency rank #30,486, classified as anadj, pronounced /'ku.kʊ/. cujo is at rank #1,638, tagged as apron.

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 32124, this pair ranks #35,778 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cuco vs cujo

Shared letters: cou. Private to "cuco": -. Private to "cujo": j.

"cuco" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cujo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cucoccuco · ccuo · cucco · cuoc · ucco
  • cujoccujo · cjuo · cujjo · cuoj · ucjo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cuco" for "cujo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cuco" is an adjective and "cujo" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "cuco" or "cujo" show up more?
"cujo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,638 in our Portuguese list, against #30,486 for "cuco". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "cuco" and "cujo". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cuco" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cujo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #35,778 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cuco" and "cujo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cúbico vs cuco". 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 #35,778 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