grauvsgruaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#2,014
“grau” frequency rank
#47,917
“grua” frequency rank
49931
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grau grua
Definition unidade de ângulo aparelho usado para levantar pesos

Letter map: grau vs grua

Shared letters muted; letters that set grau and grua apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
grau
4 ch
grua

Spelling & dictionary notes on grau vs grua

grau and grua are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (au ↔ ua) - a transposition the eye reads straight past. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49931, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grau is recorded at frequency rank #2,014, classified as anoun. grua is at rank #47,917, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɡɾu.ɐ/.

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 49931, this pair ranks #15,050 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of grau vs grua

Shared letters: agru. Private to "grau": -. Private to "grua": -.

"grau" · 4 letters · shape CCVV  ·  "grua" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • graugaru · ggrau · grrau · rgau
  • gruaggrua · grrua · gura · rgua

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "grau" and "grua" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (au ↔ ua) - a transposition the eye reads straight past, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "grau" or "grua" show up more?
"grau" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,014 in our Portuguese list, against #47,917 for "grua". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "grau" vs "grua" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "grau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grua" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,050 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grau" and "grua" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "grip vs grua". 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 #15,050 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