io vs ir, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“io” is an adverb and “ir” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,900
“io” frequency rank: #162
“ir” frequency rank: 19062
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	io	ir
Definition	sempre	mover-se de um lugar para outro

Letter map: io vs ir

Shared letters muted; letters that set io and ir apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for io / ir

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: io is anadverb and iraverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - o in “io” becomes r in “ir”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19062, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

io is recorded at frequency rank #18,900, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈi.o/, /ˈi.ɔ/. ir is at rank #162, 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 19062, this pair ranks #51,779 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of io vs ir

Shared letters: i. Private to "io": o. Private to "ir": r.

"io" · 2 letters · shape VV · "ir" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "io" and "ir" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "io" is an adverb and "ir" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "io" or "ir"?

"ir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #162 in our Portuguese list, against #18,900 for "io". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "io" and "ir".

Full dictionary entry for "io" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #51,779 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"io" and "ir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ino vs io". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #51,779 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.