girarvsguiarTell them apart

Which to use

“girar” and “guiar” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#12,256
“girar” frequency rank
#13,529
“guiar” frequency rank
25785
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature girar guiar
Definition mover(-se) em torno de um eixo, de um centro; rodar conduzir, orientar

Where the eye mixes girar and guiar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. girar (CVCVC) and guiar (CVVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
girar
5 ch
guiar

Look-alike desk: girar vs guiar

A purely visual mix-up. girar (/ʒi.ˈɾaɾ/) and guiar (/ˈɡjaɾ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25785, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

girar is recorded at frequency rank #12,256, classified as averb, pronounced /ʒi.ˈɾaɾ/. guiar is at rank #13,529, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈɡjaɾ/.

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 25785, this pair ranks #43,465 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of girar vs guiar

Shared letters: agir. Private to "girar": -. Private to "guiar": u.

"girar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "guiar" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • girar ← ggirar · giarr · girarr · girrar · griar · igrar
  • guiar ← gguiar · giuar · guair · guiarr · guira · ugiar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "girar" for "guiar" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ʒi.ˈɾaɾ/ versus /ˈɡjaɾ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "girar" or "guiar" show up more?
"girar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,256 in our Portuguese list, against #13,529 for "guiar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "girar" and "guiar" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "girar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "guiar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #43,465 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "girar" and "guiar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Guam vs guiar". 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 #43,465 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