giravsgirarWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: gira is a noun, girar is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“gira” is a noun and “girar” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,741
“gira” frequency rank
#12,256
“girar” frequency rank
17997
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gira girar
Definition ato de girar, de passear; passeio mover(-se) em torno de um eixo, de um centro; rodar

Letter map: gira vs girar

Shared letters muted; letters that set gira and girar apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch
gira
5 ch
girar

Part-of-speech tell for gira / girar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: gira is anoun and giraraverb. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “gira” sits inside “girar”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17997, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gira is recorded at frequency rank #5,741, classified as anoun. girar is at rank #12,256, tagged as averb, pronounced /ʒi.ˈɾaɾ/.

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 17997, this pair ranks #53,106 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gira vs girar

Shared letters: agir. Private to "gira": -. Private to "girar": -.

"gira" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "girar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • giraggira · giar · girra · gria · igra
  • girarggirar · giarr · girarr · girrar · griar · igrar

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "gira" and "girar" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gira" is a noun and "girar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "gira" or "girar"?
"gira" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,741 in our Portuguese list, against #12,256 for "girar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "gira" and "girar". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gira" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "girar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,106 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gira" and "girar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "giga vs girar". 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 #53,106 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