Which to use
“hábil” is an adjective and “havia” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #16,088
- “hábil” frequency rank
- #315
- “havia” frequency rank
- 16403
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hábil | havia |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | que sabe executar, que faz bem | primeira pessoa do singular do pretérito imperfeito do indicativo do verbo haver |
Letter map: hábil vs havia
Shared letters muted; letters that set hábil and havia apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. hábil (CVCVC) and havia (CVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Part-of-speech tell for hábil / havia
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hábil is anadjective and haviaaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16403, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hábil is recorded at frequency rank #16,088, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈa.biɫ/. havia is at rank #315, tagged as averb.
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 16403, this pair ranks #55,141 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of hábil vs havia
Shared letters: hi. Private to "hábil": blá. Private to "havia": av.
"hábil" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "havia" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- havia ← ahvia · haiva · havai · havvia · hhavia · hvaia
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "hábil" for "havia" ever safe?
Frequency check: "hábil" vs "havia" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pair "hábil" vs "havia" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "hábil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "havia" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #55,141 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hábil" and "havia" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "haber vs hábil". 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 #55,141 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.