ioiôvsistoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: ioiô is a adjective, isto is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ioiô” is an adjective and “isto” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,990
“ioiô” frequency rank
#349
“isto” frequency rank
49339
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ioiô isto
Definition que se começa, se para e se volta a fazer indica algo que está próximo a quem fala ou assunto de que se fala

Letter map: ioiô vs isto

Shared letters muted; letters that set ioiô and isto apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. ioiô (VVVV) and isto (VCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
ioiô
4 ch
isto

Role in the sentence - ioiô and isto

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ioiô is anadjective and istoapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49339, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ioiô is recorded at frequency rank #48,990, classified as anadj. isto is at rank #349, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈis.tu/.

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 49339, this pair ranks #15,693 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ioiô vs isto

Shared letters: io. Private to "ioiô": ô. Private to "isto": st.

"ioiô" · 4 letters · shape VVVV  ·  "isto" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • isto ← isot · issto · istto · itso

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ioiô" and "isto" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ioiô" is an adjective and "isto" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ioiô" or "isto" show up more?
"isto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #349 in our Portuguese list, against #48,990 for "ioiô". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "ioiô" and "isto". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ioiô" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "isto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,693 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ioiô" and "isto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ino vs ioiô". 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 #15,693 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