hiatovshitWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#29,000
“hiato” frequency rank
#5,308
“hit” frequency rank
34308
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hiato hit
Definition sequência de duas vogais que pertencem a sílabas diferentes atingir

Letter map: hiato vs hit

Shared letters muted; letters that set hiato and hit apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. hiato runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against hit's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
hiato
3 ch
hit

Part-of-speech tell for hiato / hit

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hiato is anoun and hitaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34308, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hiato is recorded at frequency rank #29,000, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈja.tu/. hit is at rank #5,308, 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 34308, this pair ranks #32,995 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hiato vs hit

Shared letters: hit. Private to "hiato": ao. Private to "hit": -.

"hiato" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "hit" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hiato ← haito · hhiato · hiaot · hiatto · hitao · ihato

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hiato" for "hit" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hiato" is a noun and "hit" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hiato" or "hit"?
"hit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,308 in our Portuguese list, against #29,000 for "hiato". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "hiato" and "hit".

  • Full dictionary entry for "hiato" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,995 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hiato" and "hit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hão vs hiato". 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 #32,995 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