Which to use
“designar” is a verb and “desígnio” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #14,336
- “designar” frequency rank
- #45,299
- “desígnio” frequency rank
- 59635
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | designar | desígnio |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | indicar para exercer (cargo ou emprego); nomear | intento |
Where the eye mixes designar and desígnio
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: designar vs desígnio
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: designar is /dɨ.zi.ˈɡnaɾ/ while desígnio is /dɨ.ˈzi.ɡnju/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59635, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
designar is recorded at frequency rank #14,336, classified as averb, pronounced /dɨ.zi.ˈɡnaɾ/. desígnio is at rank #45,299, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dɨ.ˈzi.ɡnju/.
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 59635, this pair ranks #8,081 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of designar vs desígnio
Shared letters: degins. Private to "designar": ar. Private to "desígnio": oí.
"designar" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC · "desígnio" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- designar ← ddesignar · deisgnar · desginar · desiganr · desiggnar · designarr · designnar · designra
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "designar" for "desígnio" ever safe?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "designar" or "desígnio" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "designar" and "desígnio" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "designar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "desígnio" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #8,081 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "designar" and "desígnio" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "designar vs destinar". 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 #8,081 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.