culináriavsculinárioWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: culinária is a noun, culinário is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“culinária” is a noun and “culinário” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,618
“culinária” frequency rank
#42,387
“culinário” frequency rank
48005
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature culinária culinário
Definition arte de preparar alimentos relativo à culinária, à cozinha

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set culinária and culinário apart are highlighted. They share 8 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

9 ch
culinária
9 ch
culinário

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: culinária is anoun and culinárioanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “culinária” becomes o in “culinário”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48005, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

culinária is recorded at frequency rank #5,618, classified as anoun, pronounced /ku.li.ˈna.ɾjɐ/. culinário is at rank #42,387, 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 48005, this pair ranks #17,216 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of culinária vs culinário

Shared letters: cilnruá. Private to "culinária": a. Private to "culinário": o.

"culinária" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVV  ·  "culinário" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVV

Frequency comparison

culinária#5,618
culinário#42,387

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "culinária" and "culinário" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "culinária" is a noun and "culinário" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "culinária" or "culinário"?
"culinária" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,618 in our Portuguese list, against #42,387 for "culinário". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering culinária vs culinário

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “culinária”; for an adjective, it's “culinário”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “culinária” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list