igniçãovsinícioConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#19,754
“ignição” frequency rank
#377
“início” frequency rank
20131
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ignição início
Definition estado de um corpo em combustão começo

Letter map: ignição vs início

Shared letters muted; letters that set ignição and início apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. ignição runs 7 letters (VCCVCVV) against início's 6 (VCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
ignição
6 ch
início

Corpus notes: ignição and início

ignição and início 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 by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20131, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ignição is recorded at frequency rank #19,754, classified as anoun, pronounced /i.ɡni.ˈsɐ̃w̃/. início is at rank #377, tagged as anoun.

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 20131, this pair ranks #50,464 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ignição vs início

Shared letters: ino. Private to "ignição": gãç. Private to "início": cí.

"ignição" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV  ·  "início" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ignição" and "início" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, 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 "ignição" or "início" show up more?
"início" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #377 in our Portuguese list, against #19,754 for "ignição". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "ignição" vs "início" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ignição" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "início" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #50,464 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ignição" and "início" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Ignacio vs ignição". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #50,464 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